Salvation Army's development in C. Sulawesi

Salvation Army's development in C. Sulawesi

By John Haba

LEIDEN, The Netherlands (JP): The Salvation Army is an international religious and charitable movement organized and operated along military lines. As an evangelical organization, the Salvation Army has a recognized form of worship, a code of doctrine and discipline, a distinct legal existence and an impressive story.

The Salvation Army originated in the Christian Mission, which began operating in the east of London in 1865. In 1878, the name of the mission was changed to the Salvation Army. Its primary aim is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to men and women untouched by ordinary religious efforts.

The founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, was born on April 10, 1829 in Nottingham, England. He came from a poor family and at the age of 13, he began working at an auction office in order to financially help his parents.

When he was 15 years old, Booth repented and became a member of the Wesley Chapel of Nottingham. From that time he retreated from various social activities and prepared himself for a single mission, namely to serve his Lord Jesus Christ.

He acknowledged, "If I begin serving my Lord, I must worship Him with all my heart, mind and life". In order to do this, Booth began searching for poor people in the streets of East London who were not able to go to church on Sunday.

He came to love those people. Later he became a minister in the Wesley Church, and then established a new organization named The East London Mission. He subsequently altered the name to the Christian Mission and finally to the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army began its mission in 1894 in Indonesia, where a Dutch officer, Ensign Adolf van Emmerik spent many years on Java before being commissioned. He visited the international headquarters of the organization and gave valuable information with a view to setting up a branch of the Salvation Army in Indonesia.

The plan was initially resisted by the Dutch East Indies government, and it advised the Dutch government in Batavia to anticipate the "invasion" of the Salvation Army, or Het Leger des Heils. Despite the resistance from the Dutch government, the Salvation Army pioneers began working in Purworejo, Central Java.

Emmerik and his wife went to Salatiga in about 1901, at the time that Mount Kelud erupted before people had harvested their rice. The eruption destroyed the harvest and village people started to starve. The villagers consequently went to Salatiga and asked help from the Salvation Army.

To alleviate the problem, Emmerik wanted to establish a colony for needy people, but London rejected his proposal. As the number of people being helped grew, Emmerik asked the Dutch government for land in Central Sulawesi to help the people. The land was granted and Zuppinger, Emmerik and their Javanese followers headed to Central Sulawesi in 1906.

The work of this organization in Central Sulawesi commenced in 1913. The pioneers were ensign Charles Jensen and captain Hendrik Loois. One of the two officers who went to Java established a colony at Kalawara (a village in Sigi-Biromaru subdistrict) called Kalawara na Putih, meaning the White Cross, around 1906, as a continuation of his mission in Java.

His main purpose to resettle poor people from Java in Central Sulawesi was rejected by the Salvation Army Headquarters in London. Later, his proposal was reconsidered and the recruiting of officers to work in Central Sulawesi started, particularly for those who had experience in farming and animal husbandry.

This offer was gladly accepted by Gerrit Jan Veerenhuis and his wife Elena, who had worked for seven years in Boyolali, Central Java.

Together with the imposition of new Dutch regulations on Central Sulawesi people, the Dutch Missionary Society was allowed to operate schools with assistance from the Dutch government.

With an increasing number of European Christian missions in Central Sulawesi, the Dutch government decided to divide the regional responsibility for religious organizations. The Salvation Army was permitted by the Dutch to establish its mission in the western part of Central Sulawesi (in the Kulawi region) in 1912.

Since that period until World War II, the Salvation Army was the only the Christian institution permitted to open clinics, schools and churches in the area.

Local development activities of the Salvation Army caused the shifting identity of the Kaili people, on whom the organization focused much of its attention. Statistically, most of the Kaili in Central Sulawesi are Muslims who reside on the plains of eastern and western Palu.

Salvation Army members mostly lived in mountainous parts of the areas. People who still live secluded lives -- the lowland people -- are called to lare or to lore (people from the mountain) or the outlying community.

The term to lare or to lore is synonymous with backwardness, illiteracy or people with no culture. Even though the mountain people have been labeled with a negative term, they, in contrast, view themselves as an aboriginal ethnic group in this area.

They are proud of their marital customs such as ada papitu and ada sasio (dowries in figures of nine and seven), and their traditional dance named rego or raego.

Being aware of the plurality of Kaili customs, the Salvation Army acts carefully in coping with a variety of issues confronting them. Yet this organization has built schools, churches, clean water networks and other public facilities. It also has provided short-term training.

In the 1960s, this organization was asked to "participate" in the resettlement of people who lived on mountain slopes in the eastern part of Palu valley.

Such involvement was an uneasy mission for members the organization. But as an organization that was directly involved with rural people, the request was accepted and carried out successfully. Since that time, any development activities in Central Sulawesi, particularly among mountain people, has not been attempted without the involvement of the Salvos.

But the direct "intervention" in various public activities brought the organization into conflict with its members.

The rural Kaili have been told that their traditional beliefs, such as offering food to forpue tana (lord of the land), pue kayu (lord of the tree), malaeka ada totua (ancestors' spirits) and other spiritual beliefs should be abandoned.

In this context, two different ideas are being bandied about. The officers keep insisting that their members should be consistent with their religious teachings on one hand. But for the local Kaili, they still rely on their self-consciousness that "my religion is my identity, my identity is my self-esteem".

From these two perspectives we can discern that (from social scientists' point of view) religion has two sides of one coin. On one hand, religion is projected to bring peace and harmony, but on the other it can create disharmony and as well as social disintegration.

A long "war" of ideas has been waged between anthropologists and missionaries on whether a community should be transformed into a new shape according to outsiders or whether it should be left untouched like an antique in a museum.

The latter idea is common among anthropologists, who discourage pressure from religious organizations. On the contrary, missionaries accuse anthropologists of exploiting society with the "kidnapping" of local peoples' knowledge for their own shake, without any benefit to society.

Apart from the above discourse, it is obvious that the Salvation Army benefits rural society and should be given merit for its role in development programs in Indonesia, particularly for its work with the Kaili in remote areas and with those residing in Palu valley.

The writer is a visiting researcher at IIAS-Leiden University, the Netherlands.