SHORT COMMUNICATION
July 2021. Christian Journal for Global Health 8(1)
The church, food culture, and ecotheology: An ongoing church
effort in reducing bushmeat eating in Minahasa, Indonesia
Alva Supita,d, Agusteivie Telewb,d, Nancy Bawilingc,d
a MD, MSc, PGDipClinRes, PhD student in Biomedical Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
b MD, MSc
c MD, MSc, Budi Setia Hospital Langowan, Minahasa, Indonesia
d Public Health Department, Manado State University, Indonesia
Abstract
Minahasa is a Christian-majority region in the Muslim-majority country of Indonesia.
Most of the Minahasan people are meat consumers, with an increased consumption
rate during festive seasons. Unfortunately, during these seasons, the consumption of
non-cattle animals such as wild animals also increases. This eating style was reported
to be related to the high prevalence of metabolic diseases in this area. In this paper,
we report the effort of the largest church organization in Minahasa to promote healthy
eating habits among its congregation, which comprises the majority of the society of
the region. More recently, the church has also been incorporating the values of wild
animal conservation in its programs in collaboration with a local non-government
organization. This ongoing unique phenomenon might serve as a unique example of
how a church organization can be involved in public and planetary health as a part of
its mission to preach the gospel to every creature.
Key Words: ecotheology, Minahasa, wild animals, eating habits, COVID-19
Introduction
Minahasa is a district region in the northern
peninsula of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. Thanks to
the efforts of the Netherlands Missionary Society
(Nederlandsch Zendelinggenootschap) ministry—
among others—in the 19th century, Minahasa had
become a Christian-majority area in the Muslim-
majority country of Indonesia.
Currently, there are on average 4.13 church
buildings in every Minahasan village from various
denominations (Table 1). The largest denomination
is the Minahasa Evangelical Christian Church
(Gereja Masehi Injili di Minahasa, GMIM),
possessing 998 out of 3,586 Protestant church
buildings/sites in Minahasa.
.
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July 2021. Christian Journal for Global Health 8(1)
Table 1. The descriptive statistics of churches in Minahasa compared to the Christian and total population and the number
of villages
Districts
Population (all
religions)
Protestant
population
Catholic
population
Number of
villages
Protestant
Churches
Catholic
Churches
Minahasa, central 347,290 290,447 27,486 270 1,016 69
South Minahasa 236,463 214,010 7,671 178 514 22
North Minahasa 268,935 209,983 20,784 131 478 51
Southeast Minahasa 116,323 95,527 1,424 144 306 14
Manado City 451,916 306,262 27,211 87 717 28
Bitung City 225,134 95,035 7,068 69 452 23
Tomohon City 100,587 72,931 23,147 44 103 24
Total 1,702,706 1,284,195 114,791 923 3,586 231
Note: By Indonesian law, Protestant and Catholic are separated into two different religions.
Data source: Ministry of Religious Affairs1, North Sulawesi Statistic Bureau2
Food is a marker of social status in various
civilizations around the world, including Minahasa.3
While the Muslim-majority Indonesian people have
a restricted meat diet, Minahasan people have been
known to eat almost all animals, which can be
partially attributed to their non-food-restricting
belief in Christianity. Local phrases circulating
among Minahasans state that, “Even the devil, after
cooked in chili, is our food,” as well as “If Adam and
Eve were Minahasans, humans would never need to
fall into sin because they would eat the snake instead
of the forbidden fruit.” These jests were not invented
by Minahasans, as people from other areas have also
claimed these jokes as their own. However,
Minahasan people are proud of being the subject of
these, at least when chatting among themselves.
It is not common for a Protestant church
organization to intervene in what its congregation
should or should not eat.4 However, in the last few
decades, when the protections to endangered animals
have been reinforced by the Indonesian law, the
church has also been called upon to support the
government efforts. It has revived its ecotheological
function, as stated by the Edenic charge to humans:
to work the earth and take care of it—which also
means to keep, maintain, and cultivate (Genesis
2:15, various translations). The recently emerging
COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the function of
the church in maintaining the relationship of its
people with the wild animals; not eating them can
prevent zoonotic transmission of animal pathogens
into humans.
In this paper, we report how local churches
have been involved in advising healthy consumption
of animal meat, especially during the festival seasons
(e.g., Christmas and New Year). This is embedded
within the sermons at the discretion of the priest of
the village-level congregations. More recently, on
the synodal level, formal memorandums of
understanding were established, including an
agreement with a local pro-environment, non-
government organization to protect wild animals,
particularly the local ape (yaki, Macaca nigra) from
being hunted for food. Three factors form a related
triangle of notions: the church, food culture, and
conservation. These will be the foci of discussion in
this report.
The excessive and exotic eating habit of
Minahasan people during the festivals
In Minahasa, Christmas is the most celebrated
festival of the year, followed by the harvest
thanksgiving period from June to August. While the
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July 2021. Christian Journal for Global Health 8(1)
congregations celebrate Christmas day by attending
the services in the church, the feast usually continues
for the following week until the new year on the 1st
of January. During this period, special foods are
prepared, mostly high in fat content. The main
domesticated animals to be slaughtered are pigs,
chickens, ducks, followed by cows. Unfortunately,
it has been a tradition that the consumption of non-
cattle, wild animals also increased during the
festival, including dogs, bats, snakes, turtles, and
even some monkey species (ref. 1 and 2 in Mandias,
20195). The consumption of these exotic animals is
rather cultural than nutritional, merely for
celebration purposes.
The church has been advising a reduction in
this practice by incorporating health advice into the
sermons around the Christmas season. It is not
uncommon for the priests to preach about healthy
eating during the season, mostly quoting that, “our
body is the temple of God, therefore we need to take
care of the food intake to prevent diseases,” “Christ
was born into humbleness, not feast,” as well as
incorporating some satires about rational feastings,
such as, “Don’t insist to eat brenebon (=red bean
meat soup, a delicacy) in December, and pay the bon
(=debt) for the whole following year.” Approaches,
however, were mostly—if not always—persuasive,
not restrictive.
It is noteworthy that Minahasa has the second-
highest prevalence of diabetes mellitus type 2 in
Indonesia.6 The incidence of acute gout is also
among the highest in Indonesia, which is likely to be
related to the high-purine intake, including from wild
and exotic animal meat.5 It is the authors’
observation as practicing physicians in this area that
there is an increase of acute gout incidence in
January compared to other months. No randomized
controlled study, however, has shown whether more
aggressive contextual preaching during the festival
season could reduce the incidence of acute gout or
diabetes in the long term. Also, there seems to be no
direct scriptural prohibition against the habit of
eating wild animals. Therefore, other approaches to
the congregation are necessary, most likely at the
level of the church organizational policy.
Green gospel, food culture, and
pandemic
In 2019, the synodal board of GMIM signed an
agreement with Yayasan Selamatkan Yaki (YSY,
Safe Ape Foundation) to incorporate the value of
ecological conservation of wild animals into the
curriculum of GMIM Sunday School. The syllabus
contained nine chapters about forest, fauna, marine,
waste management, and others.7 While the
Foundation has expertise in this conservation area,
the Church leaders identified and shared the
scriptures concerning the environment, e.g., Genesis
2:15 and the story of Noah’s Ark. This can be
considered as the initial formal agreement of the
church with an external organization, mutually
reaching out for a common aim of wildlife
conservation. In fact, ecological themes have
appeared in GMIM’s vision statements and themes,
most notably in 2014: “ . . . to overcome poverty,
injustice, radicalism, and environmental
destruction.” The 2019 pact with YSY can therefore
be considered a manifestation of the vision
statement. Encouragement from the pulpit was also
given, asking the congregation, specifically, not to
consume protected wild animals during the festivals.
Nevertheless, due to the novelty of the program, it
might be too early to observe the effect of the
agreement. The Covid-19 pandemic in the year
following 2019 affected the implementation of the
agenda. On the other hand, the year 2020 has added
another set of reasonings for advocating wildlife
animal conservation.
The SARS-Cov2 virus is believed to be
originated from bats, mainly because it shares
homology sequences with bat coronaviruses.8
Although an exact incidence of zoonotic
transmission has not yet been established, the
imminent danger of the bat-to-human transmission
of coronaviruses was predicted before it emerged.9
Thus, humans need to keep away from the wild
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July 2021. Christian Journal for Global Health 8(1)
pathogen and, hence, to the carriers—in COVID-19
context, the bats. Many Minahasan people are proud
bat-eaters. The church, therefore, in addition to
actively promoting healthy lifestyle behavior
through the sermons, also acts as a provider of
effective social control against wild animal
consumption by reflecting on the ongoing pandemic
and providing authoritative advice to avoid wild
animal consumption.
Conclusion
As the largest Christian church organization in
Minahasa, GMIM has been actively promoting
healthy eating habits, and more recently, started to
embrace a commitment against wild animal
consumption. However, the parameters for
evaluating these commitments have not been well
developed. Therefore, as the process of fulfilling the
calling for ecological preservation is ongoing, it is
suggested that other collaborations, perhaps with the
academia or public health agencies, can be made to
systematically analyze the impact of Christian
ecotheology application within GMIM on the health
of the planet. The green gospel should embrace the
conservation of yaki, other wild animals, the
environment, and the individual churches
themselves as the body of Christ—the center of
creation.
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Peer Reviewed: Submitted 1 April 2021, accepted 3 May 2021, published 30 July 2021
Competing Interests: None declared.
Correspondence: Alva Supit, Manado State University, Indonesia. alva.supit@unima.ac.id
https://sulut.kemenag.go.id/data_umat/4/Data-Tempat-Peribadatan-di-Sulut-Tahun-2019
https://sulut.kemenag.go.id/data_umat/4/Data-Tempat-Peribadatan-di-Sulut-Tahun-2019
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https://sulut.bps.go.id/publication/2021/02/26/ef5603fcc2c336b42cc0e4a5/provinsi-sulawesi-utara-dalam-angka-2021.html
https://doi.org/10.4000/aof.2212
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mailto:alva.supit@unima.ac.id
68 Supit, Telew, Bawiling
July 2021. Christian Journal for Global Health 8(1)
Cite this article as: Supit A, Telew A, Bawiling N. The church, food culture, and ecotheology: an ongoing
church effort to reduce bushmeat eating in Minahasa, Indonesia. Christ J Global Health. July 2021;
8(1):64-68. https://doi.org/10.15566/cjgh.v8i1.537
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Introduction
References