December/January, 1998
No. 032/VI/97
cover story
How Christianity came
to Bali
Once Upon a
New Years Eve
MC-ing a New Year's
Eve party during a
blackout
bali focus:
nusa dua and
jimbaran
The Origin of
Nusa Dua
A fable
People of a
Fertile Sea
The fishers of
Jimbaran beach
Center Stage
Steve Charles revamps
the Candraloka
Amphitheatre
Nusa Dua Nights
How to survive them
The Sacred
Wilderness
Colonial encounters with
Bali's southern peninsula
arts and
culture
Latter Day
Laksamana
A.A.M. Djelantik's
recently launched
autobiography
Kulkul
new Fiction by Gde
Aryantha Soethama
The Rat Pack
Who are Bali's literati?
beyond
bali
An Eddy in The
Counter of Time
Kayaking off the west
coast of Lombok
Slick and Cool in
Sengigi
Round midnight at the
famed Lombok resort
regular
Fashion
Adventure
Into the blue
Food
Jewel of the southren rim
Jungle Drums
Bali Update
On the Road
Home Grown
Made Adi Putra
advertising index for
Bali Echo web site
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SYNCRETIC MISSIONARY
"Only those missionaries who are humble, patient and
learned will meet with success in Bali." On succeeding Tsang To Hang in 1935, it was
this advice that Dutch born Father Yang Kersten, S.V.D took to heart. Its source was Mgr
Petrus Noyen, a Timorese who had been in Bali twenty years earlier, and it helped Kersten
to become one of the first to apply a more accommodative approach to missionary activity
in Bali. 
On settling in Tuka,
in the district of Badung, Kersten quickly developed a close friendship with I Wayan
Diblug, and soon baptised him as Timotius. After only two years in Tuka, he oversaw the
erection of its first church, the Mediterranean-style Church of the Holy Trinity (Satu
Allah Tri Murti). Some years later, as Tuka's Christian community began to organise
more systematically and established the Tuka Parish, a second church was erected, named
the Church of the Almighty (Gereja Tri Tunggal Maha Kudus). More Balinese in
style than its predecessor, the Church of the Almighty incorporated awantilan
(traditional meeting hall) within its overall design.
By
the time the Church of the Almighty was built, Kersten had long returned to Holland. But
it was he who had originally conceived the idea of syncretic church design as a symbol of
Christianity's recognition of the importance of local cultural traditions, thus inspiring
another missionary, Simon Buis, to commission the the Church of the Sacred Heart at
Palasari, an example later followed by the Tuka parish in building the Church of the
Almighty. Another of Kersten's important contributions is the dictionary of Balinese
grammar he wrote before returning to Holland. Since his departure, the number of
Christians in Bali has steadily increased. In 1970, Bali's Christian population was
officially put at 6000, and by 1994 had grown to around 31,000 (13,000 of them Catholics
and 18,000 Protestants).
TO THE PROMISED LAND
In 1940, Putu Jenar joined fellow Christians and
missionaries from Medangan in Gianyar when they were forced to flee their predominantly
Hindu village. When they reached the other side of the island, in the district of Jembrana
they found refuge in a small patch of newly cleared land deep within a dense jungle, and
the nascent Protestant community of Blimbingsari.
The establishment of an exclusively Christian community, where Christians whose conversion brought them into conflict with their traditional villages could go to live, was another of Kersten's ideas that was put into practice by Simon Buis. In 1940, Buis submitted a request to the Assistant Resident in Singaraja to be granted 200 hectares of forest in Blimbingsari. His request was refused by the Assistant Resident who was concerned that conflict would flare up between the Protestant community, to whom he had recently granted a similar area of forest, and the Catholic community that Buis was proposing to establish. But Buis didn't give up. He resubmitted his request to the Balinese Council of Kings, was granted 200 hectares of forest in Pangkung Sente, and thus began the journey of Bali's Catholics to their promised land. Buis led 24 families to clear the dense forest, where many of the trees reached 30 metres in height and crocodiles, poisonous snakes and wild tigers abounded. To avoid being attacked by the animals, they lived in tree houses. Two months later, 22 more families arrived from the villages of Tuka, Beringkit (both in the district of Badung) more forest was cleared, huts were built, and the planning the village was commenced.
After some years, it became clear to the villlagers of Pangkung Sente that the land was very poor and could not be farmed, so Buis applied for, and was granted another 200 hectares of land nearer the river. Today, Palasari, is a sleepy town that neighbours the Hindu village of Ekasari, and has a population of around 2000 Christians.
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