i've been thinking about turutung a lot lately. more specifically, about the church there. i remember listening to a missionary serving in france give a talk during a class i took in college. he talked about how it was so hard to evangelize there because everybody already thought they were going to get into heaven. i wonder if turutung isn't a lot like that. i mentioned in a previous post that turutung considers itself the place where christianity on sumatra started because of the missionary that they didn't eat. ninety percent of the residents profess christianity. to put this into perspective, keep in mind that indonesia is the largest muslim country in the world, and take my town for example. among other things, salatiga is well known as the city on java with by and far the highest percentage of christians. we have fifty percent, give or take. ninety percent is HUGE. that is a big deal.
in indonesia, every citizen has what is known as a ktp, which is their national id card. besides normal things like name, address, and birthday, these cards also show the holder's religion. choices are: muslim, buddhist, hindu, protestant, catholic, and confucian (confucianist?). when a child is born, what is put on their ktp is the choice of the parents. later in life, people are allowed to convert, but they have to get their religion legally changed. because of this, many people who tend to be apathetic about their religion are what we call "ktp ___________ (fill in name of religion)". and sadly, the vast majority of christians in turutung are ktp christians only.
this became very evident to me through many stories i heard while there. unfortunately, i never got a chance to attend a church service for myself, but i met several people who shared with me their experiences. for example, i learned that in turutung, being a pastor is a family business. many of the pastors there were never called to ministry. they lead a congregation because their father and his father before him led that same congregation and so they were expected to carry on the legacy. there are third, fourth, and fifth generation pastors in this town, many of whom have never been to a bible school or seminary of any kind.
so what do they preach? they preach culture. and that has become their bible. and the culture of that town widely accepts gambling, drinking, and smoking - often INSIDE the church itself. i heard of one church that rents out rooms for prostitution and adultery to take place. i also heard of a tradition that allows a visiting speaker to have the "honor" of spending the night with the pastor's wife.
another more that surprised me was the way they treat their deceased. i don't really know if they worship their ancestors there, but there is a very high value placed on taking good care of them. the dead there are not just buried with a cross marking the spot. the family must scrimp and save so that they can build a memorial to the deceased. if the family is wealthy enough, the will build a vault to put the body in. either way, the memorial over the grave is usually very large and ornate and often includes a statue of the deceased. only once did i actually see a graveyard. usually, they are buried near the family home. the sad thing is that they are so caught up in honoring the dead that the needs of the living are overlooked. i don't know how many houses i drove by that were made mostly of old pieces of plastic nailed to sticks and children with only underwear on playing in the front yard... but in the back yard there was a cement and tile vault with statues and inlays - often bigger than the house itself. people will literally save for their entire lives and then spend all that money one one day in their pursuit of honoring the dead. and this is something that is preached in the church. you must revere the dead. if you do not, you are not a christian. culture as theology.
the three pictures below were taken along the road of memorials to the dead. the first is a graveyard, the second was in the middle of a rice paddy, and the third is outside a house.
there were dozens of churches in turutung. i loved sitting at the house, looking down on the town, and seeing how many steeples i could count. i was amazed - i haven't seen that many churches in one place since... well... maybe ever? but if a student is only as good as his teacher, isn't it also in some ways safe to say that a congregation is only as godly as its pastor? and if the pastor is a smoking, gambling, alcoholic who gives his wife to other men to use (and no, i'm not exaggerating), then what can you expect of the church? turutung may be the town where the people of sumatra first came to know Jesus, but turutung is a town that desperately needs to know Jesus.
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