Untangling conversion: Religious change and identity among the forest tobelo of Indonesia

In the late 1980s, after decades of refusal, the Forest Tobelo foragers of northeastern Halmahera, Indonesia, converted to Christianity. The version of Christianity they accepted was not the one offered (or imposed) by coastal Tobelo- speaking communities with whom they share kinship and affinal ties, but was brought to the region by the American-based New Tribes Mission. This essay examines the factors and motivations behind this change, and offers an explanation that takes into account local histories, larger political and economic changes, such as deforestation and land encroachment, and the rarely examined topic of missionary methodologies. The Forest Tobelo decision to convert is best understood as an attempt to maintain their distinct identity from coastal communities with whom they have a long history of poor relations; the methods used by the New Tribes Mission made conversion an attractive option at that time. (Christianity, missionaries, Halmahera, conversion motivations) In March 1999, a Forest Tobelo man began preaching the Bible to the largest remaining group of unconverted Forest Tobelo living in the interior of central Halmahera. As the island erupted into communal violence later that year, he continued to teach despite requests from coastal communities that he stop. By October of that year a large number of the Forest Tobelo he was working with accepted the Christianity he was professing. At the same time, other Forest Tobelo missionaries were preaching to groups living in three other river valleys and were planning to go elsewhere on the island to proselytize. The seeds of this indigenous missionary movement were planted in 1982, when the New Tribes Mission arrived at Tanjung Lili in northeastern Halmahera and began laying the groundwork for their evangelism. This evangelistic activity eventually led the majority of the Forest Tobelo from the Lili, Waisango, and Afu Rivers to convert to Christianity in the late 1980s. Some of these converts now work as missionaries throughout central Halmahera. This article examines how and why a large number of Forest Tobelo decided to adopt Christianity after decades of refusal, and why they chose the New Tribes Mission version as opposed to that offered (or imposed) by the coastal Tobelo, with whom they share a language, kinship, and affinal ties. The explanation requires connecting the larger processes of social change that affected the Forest Tobelo with the moral and epistemological choices made at the individual level in decisions to accept or reject Christianity. Some models of conversion attribute such change to modernization or state incorporation, while others turn to Weberian notions of disenchantment and rationalization; i.e., an estrangement with an old way of life and the incorporation into a new social order led to the adoption of Christianity (Weber 1956; Horton 1975). However, as critics have noted, such explanations fail to take into account politics, economics, or hierarchies of power (Van der Veer 1996:10). In response, anthropologists and historians have switched their focus to the political economy of conversion and the power relationships involved, which are seen as an integral part of modernity. By adopting Christianity (or another world religion), people are in effect converting to modernity; e.g., joining the market economy, becoming citizens of a nation, etc. (Van der Veer 1996). At the same time, these theoretical approaches often view modernity as a force that overwhelms small-scale societies. They assume that these communities are victimized and have no agency in making the decision to convert (Meyer 1996:226 n. 35). However, conversion is not a simple choice between domination or appropriation, but rather a dialectic between the two (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Comaroff and Comaroff 1997:49). When the missionaries arrived in central Halmahera with their agendas for evangelism, the Forest Tobelo had their own agendas, which at times conflicted and at others times coincided with those of the New Tribes Mission. …