Traditional Tunes and Lived Religion in the Protestant Church on the Central Moluccas, Indonesia

In the southeast of Indonesia, on the Moluccas, theologians are developing contextual theologies for the Moluccan Protestant church. The Moluccas were colonized by the Dutch for more than three centuries. As an effort of religious decolonization, Moluccan theologians aim to better connect Christianity with the cultural realities of congregants. This book is about the contextualization of church music. Christian Izaac Tamaela proposed and instigated the transposition of Moluccan traditional music to the Moluccan Protestant church. In the book, the author asks how traditional music, as framed within contextual Moluccan theology, is interrelated with lived religion. Vivid descriptions of liturgical practices, music traditions, and personal encounters map the entanglements between Moluccan culture, Moluccan Protestantism, and Moluccan music. The author traces the theological idea of traditional church music to lived religious practices and attitudes among ministers, musicians, and congregants. The resonances and dissonances of this process show the continuous transformation of Moluccan traditional music. For a selection of the audio-visual material, visit the website www.jiplensink.nl/tt.

In the southeast of Indonesia, on the Moluccas, theologians are developing contextual theologies for the Moluccan Protestant church. The Moluccas were colonized by the Dutch for more than three centuries. As an effort of religious decolonization, Moluccan theologians aim to better connect Christianity with the cultural realities of congregants.

This book is about the contextualization of church music. Christian Izaac Tamaela proposed and instigated the transposition of Moluccan traditional music to the Moluccan Protestant church. In the book, the author asks how traditional music, as framed within contextual Moluccan theology, is interrelated with lived religion.

Vivid descriptions of liturgical practices, music traditions, and personal encounters map the entanglements between Moluccan culture, Moluccan Protestantism, and Moluccan music. The author traces the theological idea of traditional church music to lived religious practices and attitudes among ministers, musicians, and congregants. The resonances and dissonances of this process show the continuous transformation of Moluccan traditional music.

For a selection of the audio-visual material, visit the website www.jiplensink.nl/tt. The focus on theologians and music makes the ‘direction’ of the research innovative in two ways: firstly, it starts at the level of the educated theologians and hereby corrects the ‘still lingering reluctance to study elites’ among anthropologists (Robbins 2006, 286), countering dominant anthropological preferences towards mere ‘bottom-up’ perspectives. Focusing on theology in context, this anthropological research introduces a new dimension in the anthropology of Christianity: the anthropology of theology. Although theology has been anthropologically studied, these inquiries have mainly focused on theology ‘on the ground’ among laypeople. This research explicitly takes as a starting point the place where theological innovation is produced and discussed in order to be able to trace the relation between idea and practice in a content- and context-based way. Secondly, religion is studied through music. Because music on the Moluccas is intimately related to daily social and religious life, this perspective uniquely provides insights into Moluccan cultural identity and religious practice. The book is positioned in the field of material religion. Material religion aims to correct the Protestant bias in the study of religion. It counterbalances the tendency to emphasize text and inner belief over practice and lived religiosity (McGuire 2008; Meyer et al. 2010), asking how religious actors use and create material culture to shape their religious world and identity (Morgan 2015; Vásquez 2011). While material religion counters the longstanding perception that religion is about belief and canonical religious texts of which theological output is an important part, a contextual theology approach counters the idea that theology necessarily means texts: “Theology is wider than scholarship, and various cultures have other preferred ways of articulating their faith. Works of art, hymns, stories, dramas, comic books, cinema – all these media can become valid forms for theology in particular cultures” (Bevans 1992, 12). Seen from both disciplines, music forms the material means from which one can approach questions of religious experience, and also forms an essential part of theological practice. Emphasizing the fruitful interconnection between contextual theology and material religion, the perspective of music in this books points to a broadening of the concept of theology and to the existence of a strand of thought on what could be posed as ‘material theology’. Hence, the book brings together various academic fields and disciplines (theology, religious studies, anthropology, musicology). The writing style of the book combines an analytical academic style with a more poetic fieldwork style. The goal is to do right to the research process of actual encounters with people, their characters and feelings, their stories and histories. The vignettes and intermezzos draw the reader in, making it possible for him/her to experience the fieldwork situation through the texts. The books thus comes alive, stirring the imagination of the readers who feel closer to the object of study. Textually, the anthropological methods therefore also come to the fore. This style also broadens a possible readership, and gives credit to all people who made this research possible. (additionally, two chapters are content-wise very unique. Chapter five is about Christiaan Izaac Tamaela, who sadly passed away before the work was written. The chapter is completely in honor of him, since it appeared that I was the only and last one, in hindsight, who studied his visions and approaches. Chapter six is the musicological part of the book, and provides unique knowledge about Moluccan traditional music that no one else so far has studied.)