Background

Almost after a decade of the reformation era, Indonesia seems to be far from reaching a civil society. One major reason among many we believe is due to the weakness of Social Capital. Social capital, regarded as one of the essential pillars in building civil society, has never been or rarely a primary element to be built; the foundation is thin, people are still divided, and the level of trust is low. Slogans might exist but in reality the social gap (jurang sosial) is still wide and deep. Cooperation across citizens of different class, race, and religion, although possible, is still very rare.

This year, in TPM/OMC XIV, we would like to dissect further the ongoing issues of low social capital in Indonesia. We believe we are called as agents of change, and thus should understand better the underlying complexity of the issue and participate along with others who have been promoting a stronger social capital. The TPM/OMC XIV program committee have arranged the flow of discussions into four sessions. Below we present the details of each session.

Goals

Therefore, the goals of OMC XIV are as follow:

1. To understand the centrality of social capital in building a civilized community and a modern nation.
2. To explore, discover, and formulate the biblical roots of social capital.
3. To develop creative ways in which individuals can create and proliferate social capitals within their sphere of lives and their vocational paths.

Discussion Topics

1. Biblical View of Social Capital: In Christianity nowadays, the concept of Social Capital and Civilized Society have not been much connected to the Bible. However, we believe that God designs human as social person (makhluk sosial), and thus had established the blueprint of how society should work according to his standard. From that background, we would like to cover two important foundations: the biblical view of social capital and our mandate to build social capital.
   
   
2. State of Social Capital in Indonesia: In previous OMC, we have learned that Social Capital is one of the must foundation in reaching a civilized society. Thus, we would like to study the reality and condition of Social Capital in Indonesia. We believe that understanding the current state, including the history that brings us into current state, will help us to take part in this historical journey, in particular by learning what was wrong, what strategy failed, and finally to sharpen our future participation and engagement in building Social Capital.
   
   
3. Role and Engagement of Indonesian Churches in Building SC: Living in faith (kehidupan beragama) has been and always be a major part of our daily life. In large, we live our life with the worldview and principal that is taught to us in church, or in family, or in Christian organizations that we participate. Since we feel that “kehidupan beragama” plays such a very important role, we dill discuss the issue surrounding the role and engagement of Indonesian churches in Building SC (Note: we do not define “church” as buildings or institutions, but rather as a body of Christ).
   
   
4. Case Studies: This discussion will be divided into two parallel sub-discussions: Sub-session on economy gap (“jurang ekonomi”) and SARA gap (“jurang SARA”). The former is mostly caused by poverty, and the latter one caused by prejudice and extremism. Those two sub-sessions are tied into the reality that in Indonesia we have a major social gap (“jurang pemisah”). And if that gap is not closed, the possibility of cooperation for common good cannot be realized. We hope we learn and analyze from case studies that describe those gap, and later come up with strategic down-to-earth plans that will ask for real engagement in near future.

Speakers

To achieve our conference goals, we are inviting the following speakers:

1. Rev. Dr. Albertus Patty: He is currently active in serving the Indonesian Christian Church Maulana Jusuf in Bandung (GKI Maulana Jusuf di Bandung). He is also active in various inter-religious dialogue (dialog lintas agama).
   
   
2. Mr. Albert Suryo Sarman: He is a social worker and a researcher in the area of human rights, poverty, and plurarism especially in rural areas. He is also a distinguished activist both in domestic and international.
   
   
3. Mr. Josef Adreanus Nae Soi: He is a member of the People's Representative Council (DPR), and serves in its Commission V, which covers issues in transportation, telecommunications, civil works, civil housing, and underdeveloped regional development.