New Article by Izak Y. M. Lattu
We are happy to announce a new article, “Hybrid Religious Festivity as an Interreligious Civil Sphere in Central Java, Indonesia” by Izak Yohan Matriks Lattu in International Journal of Asian Christianity.
“While previous works focus on theological and philosophical approaches to interfaith dialogue, this study explores an interreligious civil sphere through the lens of cultural sociology. This article examines the Saparan-Aprilan (purification ritual) as a hybrid festivity in Central Java, Indonesia. The festivity is based on Christian narratives, local cultural texts, and Indonesian political codes as a social script for civic engagement. Although Saparan took on a new form following the community’s conversion to Christianity, the essence of Javanese purification remains deeply embedded in the Aprilan celebration. Utilizing an ethnographic approach with participant observations and in-depth interviews with interreligious communities on the Merbabu mountainsides from 2017 to 2023, this study concludes that hybrid festivities foster an interreligious civil sphere, promoting mutual understanding through indigenous performances, cultural texts, and political scripts.”
Izak Yohan Matriks Lattu
International Journal of Asian Christianity is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the scholarly examination of Christianity in Asia and of Asian Christian diaspora in the West and elsewhere. While other major Asian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam have received great deal of international scholarly attention, Christianity is relatively neglected as a subject of study. This journal intends to rectify this neglect by providing a multidisciplinary forum for the examination of Asian Christianity from sociological, anthropological, comparative religion, religious studies, theological, historical and similar perspectives and link such studies to emerging trends in the social sciences such as migration studies, identities, minorities, secularization, fundamentalism, development, and the political roles of religion.
In the diverse and plural contexts of Asian societies and cultures, Christianity has embedded itself in complex ways giving rise to historically particular Christian communities with their own locally and regionally prolific variants of myth, tradition and culture as well as specific engagements with altering economic and political realities. This unique journal creates a space previously unavailable to examine these dense and sophisticated linkages of religion and culture both in their rich distinctiveness as well as in a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspective allowing for broader generalizations and theorizations to emerge.
The journal is open to scholars of all religious persuasions or none undertaking serious work on the historical, anthropological, educational, theological, cultural social and political aspects of Asian Christianity and its role in shaping both the past and present Asian societies.
Lattu, I. Y. M. (2025). Hybrid Religious Festivity as an Interreligious Civil Sphere in Central Java, Indonesia. International Journal of Asian Christianity, 8(1), 15-36. https://doi.org/10.1163/25424246-08010002
