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Reading the Bible in a Javanese Village

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2011

Leslie A. Morris
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Abstract

Reading the Bible is the principal religious practice of many Javanese Protestants. It is here compared to Javanese interpretive approaches to other texts, such as the Qur'an, magical formulae, and schoolbooks. While many aspects of the format of the village Bible study group constitute a break with conventional Javanese interpretive practices, the interpretive discourse of a Bible study meeting is still constrained by long-standing status and gender distinctions. Nevertheless, the innovative format of Bible study opens some room for interpretations that undercut more authoritative and conservative readings.

Type
Symposium: Protestants and Tradition in Southeast Asia
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , September 1996 , pp. 374 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1996

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References

1 The Javanese language has a highly elaborated system of speech levels and styles used by speakers to connote degrees of formality, intimacy, deference, superiority, etc. See Geertz, Clifford, The Religion of Java (New York: The Free Press, 1960), pp. 248–59Google Scholar, for a discussion of Javanese linguistic etiquette.

2 The problem of what to call this amalgam of Javanese beliefs and practices is much vexed. What I am calling kejawen is probably better known from Geertz's Religion of Java as the abangan tradition. The term “abangan”, however, has fallen into disfavour both among some Javanese and Javanists for a number of reasons. For further discussion of this issue see Ellen, Roy F., “Social Theory, Ethnography and the Understanding of Practical Islam in Southeast Asia”, in Islam in South-East Asia, ed. Hooker, M. B. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983), p. 58Google Scholar, and Hefner, Robert W., Hindu Javanese (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

Most Javanese who adhere to kejawèn beliefs and practices also identify themselves as Muslim — Robert Hefner refers to these people as kejawèn or Javanist Muslims — so it is somewhat artificial to distinguish between Islam on the one hand and kejawen on the other. Nevertheless, since Javanese themselves do identify certain practices as being either Islamic (such as reading the Qur'an) or Javanist (such as holding a ruwatan) I have retained the distinction for the purposes of this paper.

3 Nelson, Kristina, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), p. xivGoogle Scholar.

4 See Eickelman, Dale F., “The Art of Memory: Islamic Education and its Social Reproduction”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 20:4(1978): 485–516CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a study of Qur'anic education in West Java, see Glicken, Jessica, “Sundanese Islam and the Value of Hormat: Control, Obedience, and Social Location in West Java”, in Indonesian Religions in Transition, ed. Kipp, R. S. and Rodgers, S. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1987), pp. 238–52Google Scholar.

5 See Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., “The Languages of Indonesian Politics”, in Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 123–51Google Scholar, for a discussion of the power of esoteric language in Java.

6 For a discussion of Javanese mystical sects see Geertz, The Religion of Java, pp. 339–52.

7 Pengajian, unlike the hamlet Bible study, is sex-segregated. The leader at the women's pengajian, however, is a man. At the village level, there is in theory a women's Bible study group, but during my 19 months in the village this group rarely met. When it does meet, it is led on a rotating basis by its participants.

8 For a discussion of Qur'anic exegesis in Java see Woodward, Mark, Islam in Java: Normative Piety and Mysticism in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, The Association for Asian Studies Monograph No. XLV (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1989), pp. 83–96Google Scholar.

9 Eickelman, “The Art of Memory”, p. 492.

10 Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 367CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cited in Antoun, Richard T., Muslim Preacher in the Modern World: A Jordanian Case Study in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 See Eickelman, “The Art of Memory”.

12 See Keeler, Ward, Javanese Shadow Plays, Javanese Selves (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 243–60Google Scholar, for an extended discussion of the Javanese relationship to texts and interpretation.

13 Much has been written on the complex subject of status and language use in Java, but less has been written on the subject taking gender differences into account. On status and the Javanese language see Geertz, The Religion of Java, pp. 248–59; Keeler, Javanese Shadow Plays, pp. 25–50; and Errington, James Joseph, Language and Social Change in Java: Linguistic Reflexes of Modernization in a Traditional Royal Polity (Athens, Ohio: OhioUniversity Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1985)Google Scholar. On gender and language in Java see Smith-Hefner, Nancy, “Women and Politeness: The Javanese Example”, Language in Society 17(1988): 535–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Keeler, Ward, “Speaking of Gender in Java”, in Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, ed. Atkinson, J. and Errington, S. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

14 Geertz, The Religion of Java, p. 248.

15 Keeler, Javanese Shadow Plays, p. 26.

16 For a discussion of the importance of the concept of iklas in Javanese culture see Geertz, Religion of Java, pp. 73, 240–41; for a discussion of isin see Geertz, Hildred, The Javanese Family: A Study of Kinship and Socialization (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961)Google Scholar and Keeler, Ward, “Shame and Stagefright in Java”, Ethos 11,3 (1983): 152–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.