The Gospel was brought to Luwuk Banggai in 1912 (first baptism: January 31, 1912) by Dutch and Indonesian functionaries of the established Protestant Church (GPI) in a way typical of that church at the time: group conversion, brief preparation for baptism, use of a foreign language (Malay), and a negative attitude toward local culture. In 1934, when the Prot congregations in nearby Minahasa became independent (GMIM), Luwuk Banggai was transferred to that church as a mission field. So the church here belongs to the “established” variety of Indonesian Presbyterianism. After the war, however, the congr there were combined with those on the NZG mission field, in adjoining Poso, to become the Gereja Kristen Sulawesi Tengah (1947). The amalgam did not last. Regionalism and differences in tradition caused the congr in Luwuk Banggai to break away and found an independent church (1966). Half of the church classes are situated on the mainland of Sulawesi and half on the islands of the Banggai Archipelago. In 1992 some leaders of island classes seceded and formed a new church, the Gereja Protestan Indonesia Luwuk Banggai (GPILB). The GKLB requested the government to intervene, and to declare the new church illegal. The GKLB has a number of schools. It considers January 27, 1966, as its birth date.
|
