Abstract
This chapter explores the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the Pentecostal movement. It is intended to show how the Pentecostal movement enables a reconfiguration of gender, morality, and ethnic relations, particularly for ethnic Chinese. I provide four ethnographic tales from the Pentecostal corners of Salatiga, including stories of women and of the life transformation of a male gangster-turned-pastor. Although assertive within their worship halls and revivals, Chinese Indonesian Pentecostals strive to shake off ethnic stereotypes attached to them by creating a prosperity theology that downplays materialism, and by developing an ambivalent discourse of gendered submission in the predominantly Islamic nation.
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- 1.
Interview with Pak Stephen, July 22, 2012.
- 2.
Some notable examples are from the Hmong in Thailand, the Karen of Burma, and the Tobaku in Central Sualwesi.
- 3.
Foot notes, July, 27, 2010.
- 4.
Such disparity in the appraisal of commerce complicates the assumption that women’s economic activities outside the home represents a sign of gender equality and high status, compelling scholars to dig deeper into the contradictory and emergent gender ideologies and practices.
- 5.
In the United States, for example, whereas the stereotypical image of Black men as “childish” has been constructed under the histories of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism; another stereotype, the “macho” image of Black men, has also been pervasive (Staples 1982). In considering the dilemma of Black men in American society, Hall remarked that “black men sometimes respond to…infantilization by adopting a sort of caricature-in-reverse of the hyper-masculinity and super-sexuality with which they had been stereotyped. Treated as ‘childish’, some blacks in reaction adopted a ‘macho’, aggressive-masculine style. But this only served to confirm the fantasy amongst whites of the ungovernable and excessive sexual nature…Thus, ‘victims’ can be trapped by the stereotype, unconsciously confirming it by the very terms in which they try to oppose it and resist it” (1997: 263).
Hispanic women are also contradictorily stereotyped as both “the halfbreed harlot” and “the female clown” that neutralizes the overt sexual threat posed by the former in Hollywood films (Berg 1990). African women are either “sassy” or victimized (hence, like their male counterparts), whereas Asian women are depicted as overly sexualized or too weak (hence, like their male counterparts).
- 6.
The question of changing perceptions of divorce among different religious populations in Indonesia deserves to be studied more and cannot be dealt with here.
- 7.
Field notes, July 27, 2010.
- 8.
Twentieth-century Chinese nationalism, which drew significant interest from Chinese diaspora, also plays some role in this process.
- 9.
Field notes, December 15, 2010.
- 10.
Some high-profile authors are Norman Vincent Peale, Kenneth Hagin, Robert Schuller, and Joyce Meyer.
- 11.
The global downsizing of government welfare and the rise of private enterprises have generated the general interest in cultivating mind, body, and spirit as “business” practices
- 12.
Field notes, December 19, 2009.
- 13.
Field notes, August 11, 2010.
- 14.
Such ethical self-fashioning can be packaged in a widely variable range of programs: a leadership conference for businessmen, a camp for enhancement in individual responsibility (Ouellette 2008), a self-training manual for Filipina or Indonesian domestic workers to be transformed from “rural girls” to “professional maids,” (Rudnyckyj 2004; Constable 2007), or an Islamic training program that teaches one how to manage his or her heart.
- 15.
Field notes, August 11, 2010.
- 16.
Field notes, August 11, 2010.
- 17.
My translation.
- 18.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love your wife as you love yourself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
- 19.
Interview with Pak Stephen, July 22, 2012.
- 20.
This kind of redemption story is a common one, even for new Indonesian Muslim preachers. The story typically features the transformation of “a criminal” to a religious person, who becomes famous due to a more or less “self-help” style of religious learning, as opposed to those with a background of traditional Islamic scholarship. Despite the similarity, what is specific about Pak Stephen’s case is linked to its special Indonesian Chinese context and the high representation of ethnic Chinese in the ranks of Pentecostal preachers. While there are a few Chinese Indonesians who turned into new Muslim gurus, more research needs to be done to make a proper comparison.
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Chao, EC. (2017). Regendering Ethnicity. In: Entangled Pieties. Contemporary Anthropology of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48420-4_5
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