Adventist Church Members’s View at Bogor Congregation about Batak Toba Death Tradition Ceremony According to Ecclesiates 9:5

Abstract

In this study, the author examines the traditional procession of death in Batak Toba tribe based on Ecclesiastes 9: 5. The author of this research focuses on the Seventh-day Adventists Church in Bogor. As this study to give sense to the members of Seventh day Adventist Church in Bogor for those who come from Batak Toba tribe of death has not been fully understood. It is seem by the presence of granting status to the dead who have a philosophy contrary to the Bible and the liturgy that has properties of spiritism. This study is divided into two parts, namely the study of the theory and field research. The results of theoretical research on how understanding the true philosophy than traditional procession Batak Toba find some sense that contrary to the Bible as granting status Matua Sari is considered unfinished as parents for their children there were not married when the old man died. The Bible describes in Ecclesiastes 11: 5 that humans do not know about the future and what will happen as death. Then a procession of funerals Batak Toba identical with spiritism as Gondang, Tor-tor, and Ulos are closely related to the spirits of the dead (Tondi). The results of field research conducted through a questionnaire distributed to 30 Seventh-day Adventists Church in Bogor generate data that can be summed up well the respondents understand the meaning contained in Ecclesiastes 9: 5 that the dead do not know anything. Then the respondents are still undecided about the delivery status of the dead among the Batak Toba tribe and how the Batak Toba traditional procession of death can not be loose of Gondang and Ulos.
Keywords: Sari Matua, Saur Matua, Mauli Bulung, Dalihan Natolu, Tor-tor, Gondang, and Ulos.