Abstract
The cross-religious (Muslim-Christian communities) in the Moluccas, Indonesia, has various local traditions manifested by kinship ties. Kinship values become a model for an identity to build harmonious relationships. This study examines why on December 2, 2018, the involvement ritual of Muslim communities in the Immanuel Church? The data were obtained qualitatively from several informal conversational interviews using the perspective of the ritual process (Turner, 1962, 1969) and phenomenology (Schutz, 1972). The study findings are that prior to involvement, it begins with taking the “pela” oath as part of the Muslim community, and cross-religious pela gandong through traditional values based on kinship, diversity, equality, and togetherness. To assert self-identity, cross-religious communities engage in rituals through traditional rituals (tambourine–totobuang collaboration, gandong cloth, lesso dance, and eat patita) and religious rituals (chanting of the call to prayer, and Rawi barzanji). Subjective experience, for reasons of involvement ignorance, traps, encounter relationships, diversity acceptance and motivated by the goals of self-identity proof, and kinship for search meaning of theological pluralism that allows peaceful coexistence through cross-religious civil pluralism. This study contributes to realizing cross-religious harmonization by searching for religious meaning and making it possible to live together peacefully through kinship ties. Strengthening kinship is very important because it tends to show cross-religious conflicts. This contribution offers religious accommodation opportunities and avoids cross-religious tensions.
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Qualitative data in this study are kept confidential.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to the institution of research, community service, and publications of the Ministry of Religion in the Republic of Indonesia and State Islamic Institution Ambon, Indonesia, and so as to the people with Muslim communities’ Tial and Laha villages of the involvement ritual cross-religious in Moluccas Immanuel Church, Indonesia, for immense support throughout the conduct of this review.
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Sulaeman Sulaeman and M. Ridwan are responsible for writing the article, constructing analysis frameworks, data collection, data analysis, and article translation. Sulaeman Sulaeman and Hardianti Yusuf are responsible for making constructive revisions to the article, responding to reviewers, and language polishing. Busro Busro and M. Ridwan are responsible for data analysis, article revision, article translation, and responding to reviewers.
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Ethical approval has been granted to conduct semi-structured interviews, participatory observations, and several informal conversation interviews in which participation was voluntary and after informed consent. This ethical approval has been granted by the ethical commission of the institution of research, community service, and publications of the Ministry of Religion in the Republic of Indonesia and State Islamic Institute Ambon, Indonesia. The consent of participants was informed and written. The data were processed and analyzed anonymously.
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Ridwan, M., Sulaeman, S., Nurdin, A. et al. Ritual Cross-Religious in Moluccas Immanuel Church, Indonesia: Why Involvement of Muslim Communities?. Hu Arenas (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-023-00331-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-023-00331-z