Last modified: 2022-05-31
Abstract
Indonesia, as a multi ethnic-religious country, has been one of the numerous countries to have religious institutions engaging in handling the pandemic. This includes the city of Ambon in Maluku, which makes the church a reliable institution that plays an important role in controlling the Covid-19 crisis in Maluku society. This research highlights the roles of the Gereja Protestan Maluku (GPM) through the strategy known as Tado di rumah (stay at home) in 2020, capable of transforming social conditions and coordinating spatial behaviour of the community related to the management of Covid-19. Through a descriptive-qualitative approach focusing on the case study of the GPM Rehoboth congregation (jemaat , this study tries to examine the strategy and approach which have been conducted, such as megaphone installation as a connector for worship as well as the success of renewing the principles of the church's values to return household theological beliefs by re-actualisation traditional values (adat) such as piring natsar to reduce activities in managing the "social distancing". Furthermore, this study will also observe the positive impacts of Covid-19 in regards to the unification of the dialectic between the church’s and adat values which has usually been seen as “contradictory”.