Cross-Religious Rituals in the Moluccas, Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract The cross-religious communities (Muslim-Christian communities) in the Moluccas, Indonesia, have various local traditions manifested by kinship ties. Kinship values have become a model for identity in building harmonious relationships. This study examines the reasons for Muslim communities’ involvement in rituals carried out by Immanuel Church. The data were obtained qualitatively through several informal conversational interviews from the perspective of the ritual process (Turner 1962,1969), and phenomenology (Schutz, 1972). The study finds that involvement begins with taking the “pela” oath as part of the Muslim community and participation in the cross-religious pela gandong through traditional values based on kinship, diversity, equality, and togetherness. To assert self-identity, cross-religious communities engage in traditional rituals (tambourine–totobuang collaboration, using gandong cloth, lesso dancing, and eating patita) and religious rituals (chanting of the call to prayer and Rawi barzanji). The subjective experience of cross-religious ritual involvement includes ignorance, traps, encounters and relationships, and acceptance of diversity. Participants are motivated by the goals of self-identity proof and kinship search for the meaning of theological pluralism, which allows peaceful coexistence through cross-religious civic pluralism. This study contributes to realizing cross-religious harmonization through discussing the search for religious meaning in the hopes of making it possible to live together peacefully through kinship ties. Strengthening kinship is very important because it tends to lower incidences of cross-religious conflict. This contribution offers religious accommodation opportunities and ways to avoid cross-religious tensions.