Notes from Indonesia

I am in Indonesia for two weeks as a guest of a couple of seminaries. My first week here has come to an end and I am on the train from Bandung to Yogyakarta, sitting next to a pleasant Muslim lady in her headscarf. The train preparation staff all stood in a line and bowed to us as we pulled out of the station – match that Bridgend! We have been passing through recently-harvested paddy fields and villages. Banana, coconut, papaya and bamboo and some other tropical trees are growing between the fields, and the long train trip gives me an opportunity to reflect on the week. 

This is my first visit to the country and the first time I have crossed the equator. I was a little fearful I would find it too hot, but Bandung is very pleasant, being about 3000 feet above sea level. It has rained almost every afternoon in typical equatorial fashion, sometimes hard with lightning and thunder. So that has kept the heat down too. And I have never been far from air conditioning. So, it has been easy, actually.

I have not found the seven-hour time change easy at all. Several nights I had only two or three hours of proper sleep. I hope my teaching did not suffer too much. It is better now.

I have been staying in the guest lecturer’s room at Bandung Theological Seminary. Each morning I have been going for a walk in the neighbourhood. I like getting out of the compound to see the life of local people, and exchange smiles and greetings. Bandung is a city of three million people. It has an old colonial centre with grand buildings and pleasant boulevards. Out of the centre, the few main roads with their shiny office blocks and hotels are terribly congested and the people live in densely packed neighbourhoods of one- and two-storey houses with neatly swept but tiny courtyards, beautiful cage-birds singing, cats prowling, small shops selling fruit, cigarettes and other necessities and, seemingly, a small mosque on every corner. The narrow streets and tight lanes of my morning walk throng with women and men going to work on their scooters and motorbikes – nobody seems to walk or cycle if they can avoid it –, uniformed children being taken to school, hawkers selling foodstuffs from their trolleys, the old lady selling ghastly-looking medicines, the man directing traffic at the junction and collecting coins from drivers for his pains, and rubbish collectors. Given the conditions, it is remarkable how clean and orderly the neighbourhood is. But I have yet to see one item being recycled: like many other developing countries Indonesia clearly has a garbage problem and one I hope they get on top of soon.

On Thursday my hosts, Dwi and Shanti took me for a trip to the local volcano. At around 6000ft the air is cooler. To my surprise there was a car park at the crater rim – it last erupted in 2013. From there we walked around the rim of the main crater and then down into one of the others. The smell of sulphur was powerful. Amazingly, trees and other plants grow even in the dusty ash soil of the crater. The Minahasa tree is amazingly resilient – its bark gets burnt black by the fumes, but it still produces tasty fruit – a good sermon illustration I reckon.

I was invited to teach a module on Biblical Perspectives on Pluralism on the MTh course. Dwi and her co-leaders there have recently reshaped the curriculum, putting more emphasis on interdisciplinary studies appropriate to their context. Sadly, they couldn’t find anyone in the region to teach the pluralism course (something I didn’t realise until I arrived and very disturbing) and hence the invitation. I spent two months in preparation and found it both challenging and rewarding. I was afraid I had bitten off more than I could chew and would not be very helpful, especially when I discovered that pluralism is a central cherished plank in their national ideology, expressed in the motto ‘Unity in diversity’!

I had 13 students: 10 men and 3 women. All with significant ministry experience, several pastors (one with a congregation of a thousand!), two lecturers, one woman working in conflict resolution, coming from various islands of the archipelago.

We spent a total of 25 hours in the classroom together. The first day we focussed on how we go about creating a theological foundation for addressing the topic. This was vital for what we were about to do as it forced us to ask critical questions about our pre-understanding – What do we mean by ‘religion’? and so on.

We then worked through various key biblical passages interacting with significant theologians as we went. Then we sought to answer some central theological questions that had arisen from our studies: Can anyone be saved without conscious faith in Christ? Can we learn anything from other religious traditions? etc.

Finally, we addressed missiological consequences of our studies, focussing on (by their choice) ministry in Muslim and secular societies.

I found the students very attentive and a joy to teach. They taught me much too. Some struggled to work in English. Others engaged very well; they are very well-read and familiar with nearly every author I would mention – Carson, Grudem, Bavinck, Conn, Keller, Stott, McGrath; the Reformed heritage is strong. Some are in mainline denominations, battling liberalism, others in evangelical churches that are the product of a movement to Christ in Java among the Chinese two generations ago, supplemented by a huge influx of people escaping the anti-communist death squads of the 1960s (you avoided suspicion by identifying yourself as a Christian). Nominalism is rife. Nevertheless, the desire is there to reach out to other communities who are largely untouched by the gospel – the main area in which I sought to help them.

I have a week in Yogyakarta now, where I have been invited to teach three evenings to a mixed group of MTh and BTh students. I am also to speak in the chapel of Immanuel Christian University on Monday.