m rizal abdi

Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies

The end of March 2024 becomes an important week for religious communities in Indonesia. During the week, we experience several holy days in sequence: Nuzulul Qur’an Day for Muslims and three holy days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday) for Christians. The unique event is not merely a coincidence due to the rare meeting of two calendar modes that will not happen for many years to come. For Muslims and Christians in Indonesia, this is a momentous opportunity to deepen interfaith understanding and re-learn from one another. read more

Athanasia Safitri

The latest edition of Wednesday Forum discussed Kejawen on 20 March 2024 by Dylan Renca, a doctoral candidate and teaching fellow in cultural anthropology at Boston University, USA. His research focuses on Javanist voices of ethical selfhood, belonging, and multicultural recognition. His ethnographic fieldwork is taking place in the Banyumas-Cilacap region of Central Java. He argues that most Javanists (later to be called Kejawen) today position themselves along a spectrum between Indigeneity and Islam, with diverse practices of ethical self-formation. He seeks more evidence that some Kejawen orient themselves and their practices around Islamic precepts and ways of being, while others articulate indigenous positions based on non-Islamic ontologies. read more

Athanasia Safitri

The first Wednesday Forum in March was carried out by an alumna from The Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS) UGM on March 6. Leyla Adrianti Hermina talked about how youth may use religion as a coping mechanism and presented the results of her thesis research. She opened with the question “Do Youth Turn to Religion As a Coping Mechanism?”  as she wanted the audience to start their self-examination as to whether religion could be a solution amidst many problems youth are facing. She started by stating that according to Varkey Foundation (2017), Indonesian teenagers are ranked as the happiest as a result of their strong religiosity in 20 countries. read more

Athanasia Safitri

The Wednesday Forum discussion series came back for its first session in 2024 on February 21 with Prof. Dr. Martin Rötting giving a talk on his research about spirituality in plural societies. Rötting is an Associate Professor and head of the Religious Studies program at the Centre for Intercultural Theology and Study of Religions at Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria. His empirical study seeks to answer the question of how spiritual identity may develop in the personal journey and interreligious world. The research explores the changes of individuals and religious organisations through field research in Munich, Seoul, Vilnius, and New York. read more

Dicky Sofjan, Ph.D.

Core Doctoral Faculty, Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM)

Since its inception in 2006, ICRS has been generously supported by the Ford Foundation. That amounts to almost twenty years of collaboration from providing core support to funding projects on tolerance, pluralism, sustainability, urban resilience and now polarization. Currently, ICRS is managing a grant from the Ford Foundation entitled “The Impact of Religious Tolerance and Faith-based Polarization on the Promotion of Social and Environmental Justice in Indonesia” (2023-2025). read more

Leonard Chrysostomos Epafras

United Evangelical Mission (UEM) organized the Asian chapter of the fourth round of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Conference (JCM) in Manila on February 5-12, 2024. The initiative commenced 51 years ago in Germany as the immediate response to the post-Holocaust and post-World War II circumstances. Twenty scholars, religious leaders, and activists of refugee services, including Christians, Muslims, and Jews from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Palestine, convened and discussed the meaning of home and displacement. The conference was organized with the local committee from the United Churches of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP). Dr. Leonard Chrysostomos Epafras from the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), Universitas Gadjah Mada Graduate School, was one of the steering committee members and resource persons. read more

Athanasia Safitri

Our very definition of ‘indigenous’ has transformed from the meaning of originating and a group of people from the earliest times, into the localised belief systems when it is related to religion. One of the parallel sessions which took place in the 5th International Conference and Consolidation on Indigenous Religions in Surakarta on 22-23 November 2023, was a special panel conducted by Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) UGM.  The need to speak out, to listen and respond to various voices from the indigenous communities has triggered the implementation of digital media in several platforms with different goals. read more

Athanasia Safitri

The 12th International Graduate Students and Scholars’ Conference in Indonesia (IGSSCI) was held on 7-8 November 2023 in the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada with ten main speakers and over a hundred panel speakers from different nationalities. The theme is ‘Ethics and Accountability in Politics, Sciences, and Professions” offering 15 related topics in four main sessions and 17 panel sessions. Dicky Sofjan, as the head of the organising committee, gave the welcoming remarks and mentioned the awareness of scientific development related to technology and AI. He also underlined the urgency in responding to the conflict in Gaza, and for academics to wisely do their research with good intentions. read more

Athanasia Safitri

Apart from the plenary session about the Freedom of Religion and Belief (FoRB) which was conducted during the 5th International Conference and Consolidation on Indigenous Religions in Surakarta on 22-23 November 2023, there were three parallel panels about FoRB. It reminds us of the urgency in acknowledging the challenges facing many religious communities and citizens belonging to either the officially recognized religions or indigenous religions in Indonesia that they have had to endure. Thirteen speakers discussed the penal code, state policy, bureaucracy, religious and cultural values, interfaith marriage, and child custody throughout the two-day conference held in PUI Javanologi UNS. read more

On Friday, December 1, 2023, at the Aula of the Radboud University Nijmegen, Professor Emeritus Frans Wijsen delivered his farewell speech entitled “Exploring Man and Nature: Does the Supernatural Matter?” At Radboud University, Wijsen served for many years in the Department of Empirical and Practical Religious Studies. Since 2022, he has been an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM).

He was honored with the Distinguished Lifelong Academic Achievements Award of the African Academics Network. He also received a copy of the book Beyond the Spirit of Bandung, edited by Frans Dokman and Antoinette Kankindi. The book, available open-access, is dedicated to him on the occasion of his retirement as professor at Radboud University Nijmegen. read more