Bukit Kasih Kanonang as a Religious Tourism Site Based on Local Wisdom of North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

Bukit Kasih Kanonang (Kanonang Love Hill) is a place of worship for Christians of the Minahasa Regency, North Sulawesi, one of the provinces of Indonesia, which in its development has also become a popular tourist destination. As a site that blends Christian elements, local traditional elements and values of tolerance among the world’s major religions namely Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, this beautiful piece of land includes a number of sites such as a monument to tolerance, a house of worship for each religion, a giant crucifix, statues, and the faces of Minahasan ancestors carved into cliff faces. All these elements suggest that while the people have values of tolerance and religious harmony, nonetheless the 55-meter giant white cross at Bukit Kasih Kanonang is evidence of the dominance of the local people’s Protestant Christian belief. Using the perspective of Hayden’s Antagonistic Tolerance, this paper investigates how people of other religions deal with the issue of dominance and how the social construct in the saying Torang Samua Basudara (we are all family), which has been the way of life of the Minahasan people, supports the concepts of tolerance and harmony.

Keywords

• local wisdom
• religious sites
• tolerance
• torang samua basudara