Liberatio Communio : The Ecclesiological Identity of Sadrach’s Javanese Community

Abstract

We tend to view the narrative of a church and its involvement in mission as describing predominately either a social phenomenon or a “divine image.” To do so, however, leaves us with a single-dimensional narrative. Under the term Sanctorum Communio, Bonhoeffer developed an ecclesiology that blends these two narratives into a single, multidimensional entity. Using Bonhoeffer’s perspective, I retell the history of Golongane Wong Kristen kang Mardika, Sadrach’s Javanese nineteenth-century community, not merely as a historical community or a divine “product,” but as a liberatio communio. This ecclesiological identity involves the transformation from a peccatorum communio to a sanctorum communio.