Christian Women in Indonesia: A Narrative Study of Gender and Religion.

van Doorn-Harder, Nelly

Christian Women in Indonesia: A Narrative Study of Gender and Religion. By Frances S. Adeney. Women in Religion. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2003. xii + 226 pp. $24.95 paper.

"Are you trying to dismantle our whole way of life?" (69) asked an Indonesian male professor at the defense of a thesis about gender equality. His reaction encapsulates the struggle of the mostly Protestant women Frances Adeney describes. Mining her experience with students at one of Indonesia's first graduate gender studies programs, Adeney unfolds a tale seldom told. She traces a budding gender consciousness among Indonesian women who study to become pastors. This new awareness, although in part inspired by Western feminist models and theories, has to chart its own course and develop methods congenial to the Indonesian context. Throughout the book Adeney draws attention to the pitfalls the researcher faces when trying to impose Western models of thinking on Indonesian society, religion, and culture. Adeney impresses upon us that we can take nothing for granted and need to develop new hermeneutical approaches to frame conversations across different cultures (185). Following recent discussions of non-Western feminists, she shows that many ideas held by Western feminists--not even the ones that consider gender equality to be a universal value--do not hold ground when confronted with local circumstances (181).

Central to the book is the idea that to have access to real power, both in society and within their churches, the women use everyday practices of offering hospitality, creating beauty, and honoring relationships to create religious identified resistance. Women all over the world, Adeney points out, thus "affirm one another in relationships and develop resistance theologies that reconstruct social realities" (179).

Adeney unpacks this focus on women's theological resistance by first describing what it means to live in a patriarchal society that considers women as unequal to men. A well-defined picture of tasks, duties, and social obligations emerges that women have to obey while their husbands hold the ultimate leadership. Indonesian gender ideologies see women as innately different from men. Due to their elusive "kodrat" or inborn nature, they are expected to restrict their area of work to "feminine" tasks. In the context of a school for theology, this means that once a woman emerges with a diploma identical to that of a male student, she will seldom reach positions of authority within her church. When the prevailing patriarchal culture fuses with Christian ideology, the result is that it prevents women from developing new women-minded theologies.

Synthesizing the various points made in the course of the book, we see that the lives of Christian women in Indonesia are influenced by a variety of ideologies, ideas, and pressures. Most of the women belong to churches that were established by Dutch missionaries during the colonial rule. Patriarchy knew no cultural boundaries as both in the homeland and in Indonesia women were not allowed to play key roles in the development of the churches. Dutch theology became and still is a strong point of reference for Indonesian Christians, and both male and female theologians struggle to emancipate from its intellectual and theological grip. Thus women theologians in Indonesia focus on the alternative models based on everyday practices that help them develop a fruitful discourse congenial to their specific condition.

The Islamic environment informs the lives of these women in two ways. It contributes to the gender ideology, especially where it considers women to be inferior to men. It also continues to add to the women's plight as they represent a minority of female theologians within a minority of Christians.

Finally, governmental programs developed by the Suharto regime imposed on women the triple burden of mother, housewife, and partner in the development of the nation. This last role was especially exercised in long-winded committees and obligatory educational/indoctrination programs about the tasks of the ideal woman.

By highlighting the interpretive understanding of knowledge that developed within communities and arose from the interaction with other views, Adeney provides an important contribution to feminist theological discussions. As the global arena for these theologies is expanding, this book gives a voice to feminists whose existence is seldom acknowledged. Not only does she show the struggles, but her narrative also confirms that women can change the suppressive traditions via new interpretations.

Gender relations all over the world are transforming radically today. As is the case elsewhere, the Indonesian context shows that change can come at an accelerated pace. Since Frances Adeney did her research, the Suharto regime has stepped down (1998), and many of the governmental programs imposed from above have changed or were abolished all together. Numerous graduate programs for gender studies have opened at universities all through Indonesia, and Christian women theologians have launched official and nonofficial networks and published journals that are slowly replacing the Western publications.

Emancipation, however, is not just a concern for women. Especially the Indonesian Muslim women's movements stress that men as much as women have to be freed from the shackles of tradition: tradition in society and in the sacred texts. They refer to a model that promotes evolution of new ideas rather than revolution. For the Christian women the reality remains that their churches are still governed by an older generation of men such as the professor who saw his world falling apart with women writing theses about gender issues. But this generation is already being replaced by that of the women with whom Adeney worked. Slowly they are reshaping the face of their churches. The methods they use to do this might differ greatly from what Westerners consider to be feminist behavior. But the reality that Indonesian women reject the term "feminist" should give pause as to how women re-create their specific environments and create new discourses congenial to their needs and circumstances. While some called them "Westernized radicals," Adeney reports that educational events sponsored by the Gender Studies Center were always well attended (184). And so this book is a testimony of how the winds of change have became irreversible.

Nelly van Doom-Harder
Valparaiso University