Refiguring Christian pedagogy through Ruang Karso: A symbolic framework for formative praxis

Developing Pendidikan Budaya-Spiritual (PBS)

The Pendidikan Budaya-Spiritual (PBS) framework emerges as a theological-pedagogical response to the fragmentation of Christian education in both global and Indonesian contexts. Pazmiño (2008) critiques many contemporary approaches for their tendency to prioritize instructional efficiency and doctrinal clarity at the expense of spiritual depth and relational integrity. He argues that Christian education must be rooted in a theocentric vision that engages learners holistically as spiritual, intellectual, cultural, and relational beings within their lived contexts. Further, Pazmiño (1992) underscores that pedagogical models must move beyond cognitive transmission and cultivate spiritual discernment through contextual responsiveness and ethical presence.

This vision aligns with Ki Hadjar Dewantara’s educational philosophy, which situates learning within the student’s moral, cultural, and volitional development. Wiryopranoto et al. (2017) interpret Dewantara’s concept of the educator as a pamong, a moral guide who accompanies the student in awakening their inner will (karso) through trust and reflective companionship. Dewantara challenges authoritarian and technocratic forms of instruction by emphasizing ethical formation embedded in cultural rootedness. In a complementary register, Palmer (2007) maintains that education begins with the spiritual wholeness of the teacher, whose interior life shapes the conditions of authentic formation.

PBS is structured through four symbolic pillars: transformative spirituality, contextual cultural symbolization, liberating relationality, and dialogical pedagogy. These pillars arise from the convergence of Dewantara’s Among philosophy and Pazmiño’s theocentric orientation, forming a coherent grammar for Christian formation in plural contexts (Dewantara, 1935a; 1935b). In their comparative reading, Darmawan and Sujoko (2019) show how Dewantara’s emphasis on moral cultivation and reflective teaching aligns with Pazmiño’s focus on spiritual identity and contextual theology as formative dimensions of pedagogy.

The first pillar, transformative spirituality, reframes education as a spiritual vocation. Palmer (2007) asserts that the effectiveness of teaching lies not in technique but in the educator’s capacity to teach from a place of spiritual integrity. This insight converges with Dewantara’s stress on budi pekerti, or moral discernment, described by Idrus (2019) as essential to guiding learners (Dewantara, 1943). Yohanes (2024) further argues that doctrines such as Imago Dei must be enacted pedagogically through acts of hospitality, attentiveness, and embodied spiritual guidance rather than abstract theological claims.

The second pillar, contextual cultural symbolization, draws on Ricoeur’s (1984) theory that symbols give rise to thought and mediate our understanding of the world. Dewantara conceptualizes the school as a taman budaya (Dewantara, 1928; 1955a; 1955b). In this cultural garden, learners are formed through local rituals, aesthetic practices, and collective narratives. Ferary (2021) interprets this as a pedagogical resistance to colonial erasure, affirming that education should activate cultural memory and symbolic understanding. In PBS, theology is not integrated into culture as a supplement but refigured within the living symbolic grammar of the participant’s world.

The third pillar, liberating relationality, grounds pedagogy in mutual presence and ethical companionship. Freire (2018) critiques the ‘banking model’ of education for silencing students and argues for dialogical encounter that activates agency. Dewantara’s emphasis on kekeluargaan (relational solidarity) parallels this posture by framing education as shared moral responsibility within an ecology of trust (Wiryopranoto et al., 2017). Pazmiño (2008) gives this relational claim a theological frame, while Caputo (1993) underscores its ethical edge by describing formation as responsiveness that is elicited in encounter rather than enforced by instruction.

The final pillar, dialogical pedagogy, affirms that faith is formed through conversation, interpretation, and narrative tension. Ricoeur (1988) describes how identity is constituted through the narrative refiguration of lived experience in interaction with sacred texts and community memory. Smith (2024) builds upon this through his concept of civic hospitality, where Christian educators create interpretive spaces that honour commitment and plurality. Darmawan and Sujoko (2019) return to Dewantara’s vision of the pamong, not as one who imposes meaning but as one who listens, reflects, and co-discerns with learners. Dialogical pedagogy, therefore, positions formation as a journey of mutual interpretation rather than a delivery of religious content.

These four symbolic movements define PBS as a theological-pedagogical foundation for Christian formation. Rather than aiming for cognitive integration or moral compliance, PBS constructs a symbolic and cultural framework in which formation is possible. The realization of these pillars – through relational practice and spiritual attentiveness – will be explored in the next section, where they find their ecological expression in Ruang Karso. The symbolic architecture of PBS forms the groundwork for a refigurative pedagogical ecology – Ruang Karso – which will now be explored as the living space where Christian formation unfolds.

To make explicit how PBS moves from symbolic architecture to formative practice, the following brief illustrations indicate what the four pillars can look like in ordinary classroom life, without turning formation into a technique or a compliance logic. In Dewantaran terms, the teacher acts as pamong: an accompanier who cultivates moral attention and relational space rather than imposing outcomes (Dewantara, 1933, 1941, 1943). This posture matches PBS’s emphasis on formation as symbolic praxis – shaped through practices of meaning, encounter, and habit (Pazmiño, 2008; Smith, 2024).

One illustration is symbol-mapping as a hermeneutical practice. Students identify local symbols that already carry formative weight – family practices, rituals, proverbs, songs, or narratives of wound and hope – and critically map what each symbol invites, normalizes, and conceals. This mapping foregrounds the moral imagination embedded in everyday cultural forms, making explicit how symbols quietly shape desire, agency, and perception. These symbols are then read alongside a biblical text, not as decorative ‘examples’ appended to doctrine, but as a contested interpretive field in which cultural meanings and scriptural witness mutually interrogate one another. In this space of tension, refiguration becomes possible – not through replacement or synthesis, but through the reorientation of meaning and desire (Ricoeur, 1984).

A second illustration is narrative encounter through a short story circle (2–3 min each), where students name a lived moment of moral struggle, ambiguity, or cultural dissonance. The pedagogical response privileges reflective questioning over immediate evaluation or correction, allowing meaning to emerge dialogically rather than prescriptively. This practice activates karso/karsa as a volitional openness to becoming – understood not as enforced conformity, but as an awakened inner agency sustained through communal accompaniment (Dewantara, 1952). In this way, moral formation is approached as an event of encounter, where vulnerability and listening function not as pedagogical risks but as formative resources, resonating with dialogical and postfoundational accounts of education (Caputo, 1993; Palmer, 2007).

A third illustration engages material culture as taman budaya. Students bring an artefact from communal life – food, a mourning practice, a celebration object, or a tool from shared work – and interpret its moral resonance in relation to Christian practices such as hospitality, lament, and shared service. The artefact becomes a mediating symbol through which faith is encountered as embodied, situated, and culturally textured rather than abstract or disembedded. Dewantara’s writings on taman ground this approach as an embodied learning ecology, intentionally cultivated through cultural familiarity, attentiveness, and careful guidance (Dewantara, 1928; 1955a; 1955b). Taken together, these brief illustrations do not function as techniques to be replicated, but as clarifications of the kind of enactment that Ruang Karso names and sustains – as a symbolic ecology in which Christian formation is patiently nurtured within lived cultural worlds.

Ruang Karso: the symbolic ecology of Christian formation

The theological and pedagogical vision of Pendidikan Budaya-Spiritual (PBS) finds its fuller expression in Ruang Karso, a symbolic ecology where Christian formation is embodied, culturally situated, and dialogical. The word karso, rooted in the Javanese philosophical lexicon, refers not simply to cognitive volition but to an inner spiritual willingness to become, act, and relate. Wiryopranoto et al. (2017) describe karso as a force that energizes moral learning – one that is to be awakened rather than enforced. If formation depends on such an awakened willingness, then the central pedagogical question becomes not ‘How do we produce the right outcomes?’ but ‘What kind of guidance sustains the conditions in which karso can emerge responsibly?’.

In this Dewantaran horizon, the teacher is best understood as a pamong: not a controller of outcomes, but an accompanier who sustains the conditions in which formation can take place. More operationally, the pamong hosts the learning space by establishing trust and moral seriousness, curates symbols by helping students name and interpret the cultural and theological meanings at work, bears witness through personal integrity rather than technique alone, and guards against coercion by protecting learners, especially the vulnerable, from moral pressure or spiritual performance (Dewantara, 1933, 1943). Doctrinal content is not removed in Ruang Karso; it is held as an invitation for discernment and faithful interpretation rather than as an instrument of control. In this way, awakening becomes possible through relational care and cultural familiarity, not through doctrinal compulsion but through moral resonance (Pazmiño, 2008).

Figure 1 visually articulates this vision, presenting PBS not as a linear curriculum but as a symbolic structure grounded in a theological and cultural foundation. The converging visions of Pazmiño’s theocentric pedagogy and Dewantara’s cultural humanism lie at the model’s base. On this foundation, PBS rests on four symbolic pillars: transformative spirituality, contextual cultural symbolization, liberating relationality, and dialogical pedagogy. Each names a distinct formative movement within Christian education. These pillars do not lead to standardization but instead support a pedagogical ‘roof’: a transformational-formational vision of education that prioritizes becoming over instruction.

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Figure 1.

Ruang Karso: A refigurative space of symbolic Christian formation.

At the heart of the model lies Ruang Karso, not as a metaphor but as a refigurative pedagogical space. It embodies Ricoeur’s (1984) concept of refiguration, in which narrative and symbolic tension transform the interpretive world of the student. In this symbolic ecology, students do not simply receive doctrine; they dwell in meaning-making where cultural identity, spiritual volition, and theological tradition intersect. Ferary (2021) describes this type of space as a pedagogical habitat that resists neutrality and cultivates ethical and symbolic depth through ritual, story, and shared imagination.

In this environment, the teacher is reframed as a pamong, a role that, according to Darmawan and Sujoko (2019), is marked by ethical authority earned through relational attentiveness. The pamong does not command knowledge but bears witness to it through embodied presence. Palmer (2007) reinforces this role by arguing that the teacher’s identity is not separate from their pedagogy; instead, the teacher’s inner landscape sets the condition for transformational learning. Smith (2024) extends this vision through faithful presence, where educators embody conviction without control, cultivating spaces of hospitality and discernment.

The student, likewise, becomes a co-author of theological meaning. Christian formation within Ruang Karso is not hierarchical but interpretive: learners engage with symbols, texts, and cultural narratives to form their faith identities. As Ricoeur (1988) explains, identity is never fixed but narrated through continuous reconfiguration of lived experience. This process positions learners not as recipients but as authors of meaning, working through overlapping grammars of faith and culture.

In this symbolic ecology, formation is not conceived as transmission but as encounter. Caputo (1993) proposes that theology comes fully alive during interruption – when the self is called to respond to the other. Ruang Karso becomes the space where such interruptions are welcomed, interpretation is shared, and relational and symbolic vulnerability is embraced. It is not a room of certainty but a room of encounter, where education unfolds through dialogue, memory, imagination, and moral discernment.

This model aligns strongly with current directions in Christian education research. Smith (2024) calls for learning environments grounded in civic hospitality, which allow for conviction, ambiguity, and deep moral inquiry. Chalwell et al. (2024) describe the influence of Christian middle leadership, where educators shape school culture through relational authority and theological reflexivity. In Ruang Karso, the teacher as pamong functions as precisely this kind of leader who does not impose but cultivates formation through attentive presence and dialogical posture.

Ruang Karso is the embodied space where PBS becomes a lived reality. It is not a static model but a dynamic ecology that holds theological identity, cultural resonance, and moral complexity in creative tension. Within it, formation does not aim at closure but invites continual refiguration – a faithful journey of becoming through narrative, presence, and shared hope.

This non-closure resonates with Biesta’s insistence that education cannot be reduced to an ‘educational technology’ with a perfect match between input and output, and that attempts to make schooling risk-free by predefining outcomes can easily become uneducational (Biesta, 2013: 1–2). In Good Education in an Age of Measurement, this appears as a pedagogy of interruption that is explicitly ‘not a “strong” pedagogy’ and cannot guarantee its outcomes; its task is to keep spaces open in which uniqueness may come into the world (Biesta, 2010a: 91). Biesta’s critique of learnification also cautions that calling those we teach ‘learners’ can subtly position them as lacking and ‘not yet complete’, inviting an asymmetry that readily legitimates explanation and control (Biesta, 2010b: 541). Read alongside these claims, Ruang Karso can be understood as a culturally grounded ‘weak’ pedagogy: the pamong sustains conditions for encounter and discernment, holding doctrinal content as invitation rather than instrument of control. In this sense, it echoes Biesta’s ‘empty-handed’ insight that no programme can force responsibility and that education must resist turning subjectification into production (Biesta, 2013: 23).

Placing Ruang Karso in current conversations

The symbolic and pedagogical architecture of Ruang Karso does not emerge in isolation; it enters into dynamic conversation with current developments in Christian education research. Several recent contributions within the International Journal of Christianity and Education have begun to reimagine pedagogy in ways that resonate deeply with the conceptual movements found in Pendidikan Budaya-Spiritual (PBS). This section situates Ruang Karso within those conversations by drawing parallels, noting tensions, and highlighting its contribution as a framework that integrates theology, formation, and symbolic cultural engagement.

In his call for civic hospitality, Smith (2024) argues that Christian education should create learning spaces where conviction and openness co-exist. Rather than transmitting belief, he suggests formation occurs through ‘pedagogical presence’ – a morally charged form of relational engagement where participants feel seen, heard, and invited into reflective discernment. This vision parallels the ecology of Ruang Karso, where the teacher as pamong embodies faithful presence, and the student becomes a co-author in a shared symbolic world. However, while Smith locates this transformation primarily in civic and pluralistic discourses, Ruang Karso grounds it within narrative-symbolic spirituality shaped by Indonesian postcolonial realities. Thus, Ruang Karso extends Smith’s vision by rooting hospitality in civic ethics and local symbolic epistemologies.

The importance of relational leadership in formation is explored by Chalwell et al. (2024) in their study of Christian middle leaders. They argue that faith-informed leadership is exercised not through institutional authority but through relational influence, theological awareness, and cultural mediation. This strongly aligns with the Dewantaran figure of the pamong, as conceptualized within PBS. In Ruang Karso, the pamong not only supports but also co-discerns, teaches, and bears witness. Both perspectives resist hierarchies and instead cultivate leadership as presence and ethical consistency. Ruang Karso thus provides a culturally rooted typology of spiritual middle leadership, particularly relevant in collectivist and postcolonial contexts where relational authority shapes community formation.

Broer et al. (2024) raise crucial concerns about educational freedom and the plurality of ideals in Christian schooling, particularly within the Dutch context. They argue that respecting the diversity of educational worldviews must include epistemic freedom for both students and communities. Ruang Karso, grounded in Ricoeurian refiguration and Dewantara’s emphasis on volition (karso), affirms this perspective by framing the learning space as symbolic freedom. Within PBS, formation occurs not by enforcing doctrinal certainty but by inhabiting the tensions between theology, culture, and subject identity. The space is committed and open, marked by hospitality toward difference while rooted in a spiritual telos.

From a European genealogy of formation-thinking, Ruang Karso can also be read in conversation with the Bildung tradition as it is operationalized in German Didaktik. Without claiming conceptual equivalence, there is a family resemblance in how both frameworks treat formation as irreducible to competencies and outcomes-control. Klafki frames instructional preparation as a ‘new, small-scale, and provisional construction’, and insists that even careful planning must acknowledge that ‘each and every lesson holds in store myriad unforeseeable possibilities’. For that reason, the core of preparation is not technique-first efficiency but the design of opportunities for learners to make ‘fruitful encounters’ with contents of education (Bildungsinhalte) (Klafki, 2007: 115). Read in this light, Ruang Karso can be described as a culturally grounded ecology of encounter: it foregrounds content-engagement and interpretive participation while resisting coercive closure. The convergence is one of structure rather than identity – Bildung-through-encounter and Dewantaran accompaniment both name formation as open, relational, and eventful.

A related dimension appears in Broer et al. (2024), who explores the role of school–family coherence in the success of Christian education. They argue that coherence is not uniformity but the result of interpretive alignment – shared stories, values, and practices that allow students to navigate faith across contexts. Ruang Karso contributes to this dialogue by offering a symbolic ecology where such coherence is cultivated not by standardization but by narrative participation. Dewantara’s emphasis on the unity of pikir, rasa, dan karsa (thought, feeling, will) (Dewantara, 1952) forms a conceptual bridge between domestic spirituality and classroom formation. PBS thus provides a framework to support interpretive coherence across domains, especially in pluralistic societies where learners traverse multiple cultural grammars.

While previous studies Acetylena (2019) and Adiyati et al. (2024) have illuminated the philosophical and cultural contributions of Ki Hadjar Dewantara to national pedagogy, particularly in terms of spiritual leadership and emancipatory discourse, this article seeks to advance these insights by proposing a refigurative and researchable framework. The conceptualization of Ruang Karso as a symbolic ecology extends Dewantara’s wisdom beyond the realm of cultural heritage, situating it within global conversations on Christian formation, intercultural pedagogy, and theological education.

When considered collectively, these scholarly contributions affirm the urgency of reimagining Christian formation in relational, dialogical, and context-sensitive ways. Ruang Karso uniquely offers a symbolic and spiritual architecture rooted in Indigenous pedagogical wisdom, postcolonial critique, and theological interiority. It moves beyond integration models by inhabiting tension, inviting refiguration, and cultivating relational presence. Within current scholarly trajectories, PBS and Ruang Karso stand as a bridge between theory and practice, faith and culture, tradition and agency, and conviction and openness.

Empirical potentials of the Ruang Karso Model

As a conceptual framework, Pendidikan Budaya-Spiritual (PBS) and its culmination in Ruang Karso have not yet undergone empirical testing. However, the model has been carefully constructed within a pedagogical and theological grammar that meets the standards of contemporary educational research, especially in Christian and postcolonial contexts. Estep and Kim (2010) emphasize that valid Christian formation models must integrate theological convictions with developmental insight and pedagogical action. In a similar line, Pazmiño (2008) argues that Christian formation cannot be reduced to curriculum content but must be evaluated through its relational, spiritual, and contextual dimensions as they manifest in daily pedagogical practice.

PBS offers a range of conceptual variables that are observable and researchable in lived contexts. These include the enactment of transformative spirituality as seen in classroom rituals and teaching postures (Palmer, 2007); the presence and role of cultural-symbolic references within instructional content (Ferary, 2021); the relational dynamics between teachers and learners that reflect liberating accompaniment and ethical presence (Caputo, 1993; Freire, 2018); and the quality of dialogical engagement that facilitates shared interpretation and theological imagination (Ricoeur, 1988; Smith, 2024). These variables can be operationalized through ethnographic observation, artifact analysis, and narrative inquiry with educators and students. Hull (2009) has noted that spiritual formation in education is never reducible to outcomes alone but must be explored through the layers of memory, gesture, and communal encounter that define how belief is lived.

The practical potential of PBS is evident across multiple educational contexts. Christian school classrooms offer fertile ground for observing the tension and interplay between doctrine and cultural formation, especially in pluralistic environments. Teacher preparation programs provide a critical site for examining how candidates internalize and embody the role of the pamong (Dewantara, 1933, 1943), particularly as they engage spiritual formation not as a theory but as a relational calling. Community-based Christian education – such as local churches, youth mentorship circles, and intergenerational storytelling spaces – represents another locus where the PBS model may be contextualized and tested for formative efficacy. Wijaya Mulya et al. (2024) highlight the need for spiritually grounded and culturally rooted pedagogies in Indonesia, where standardized instruction often neglects both dimensions.

While previous studies Acetylena (2019) and Adiyati et al. (2024) have illuminated Dewantara’s cultural-spiritual vision, particularly his emphasis on ethical leadership, volitional awakening (karso), and emancipatory education, this article extends those insights by proposing a researchable symbolic ecology in the form of Ruang Karso. The shift from philosophical reflection to pedagogical architecture opens rich empirical pathways: how do educators embody the pamong role within dialogical and symbolic learning spaces? In what ways do Dewantaran values such as ing ngarso sung tuladha, ing madya mangun karso, and tut wuri handayani (Dewantara, 1935a; 1935b) shape relational dynamics and classroom culture in Christian contexts? These questions can be explored through ethnographic observation, narrative inquiry, and pedagogical design research – tracing how Indonesian spiritual-intellectual legacies can be lived out and adapted across Christian learning communities, particularly in the Global South.

Several research questions emerge from the PBS model and are especially relevant for qualitative exploration. These include: How do teachers function as pamong, facilitating not only moral instruction but the volitional awakening of learners through relational and symbolic gestures? In what ways does symbolic dialogue manifest within classrooms shaped by local narrative traditions and theological reflection? How do learners themselves refigure theological meaning through co-authorship in shared educational space?

Several methodological pathways are available to explore these questions. Case study approaches offer contextual depth and have proven effective in faith-based educational research. For instance, Afifah et al. (2025) utilized a phenomenological-hermeneutic method to explore students’ lived experiences during digital instruction, illustrating how spirituality and relational meaning are often absent in mechanized learning environments. Narrative inquiry, as demonstrated in the work of Riley et al. (2024) and Madden (2015), can help trace the construction of theological identity through stories and reflective accounts. These approaches are consistent with Freire’s (2018) idea of education as praxis, where formation arises through the dynamic interplay of action and reflection, theory and experience.

Although PBS and Ruang Karso have yet to be formally validated through large-scale studies, their internal coherence, contextual adaptability, and theological richness position them as promising candidates for empirical research. Denny and Wepener (2021), in their ethnographic work on theological education in South Africa, argue that pedagogical transformation requires models that hold together contextual practice, cultural imagination, and spiritual formation. PBS responds to this by offering a symbolically dense yet researchable architecture, spiritually deep yet pedagogically concrete. Future research might involve building instruments that trace the presence of the PBS pillars in learning environments, measuring symbolic fluency, relational presence, or narrative formation across different theological and cultural settings. Cross-contextual studies, especially within the Global South, could test the model’s resonance and adaptability in communities where Christian formation is deeply intertwined with cultural renewal and postcolonial struggle.

In this sense, Ruang Karso offers not merely a philosophical proposition but a theologically attuned, culturally situated, and methodologically open space of formation. It invites further exploration, testing, and refinement, not to reduce it to data points but to honour its role as a living pedagogy that bridges theory and encounter.