BANGOR — The Rev. Dr. John Campbell-Nelson, a professor at the Bangor Theological Seminary’s Portland campus, is looking forward to returning to his teaching job in Indonesia, despite the nation’s current economic crisis and political unrest.

Since the resignation of the republic’s President Suharto in May, Indonesia’s currency has lost 70 percent of its value and its gross domestic product is expected to fall 20 percent by the end of the year. Open elections are scheduled for next year with 80 political parties vying for control.

“It’s an exciting time to be there, even though things are hard,” the theology professor said at the annual opening convocation at Bangor Theological Seminary on Thursday night. “After 12 years of waiting to hear people speak their hearts, it’s going to be exciting to hear what they have to say.”

However, while Campbell-Nelson was speaking in Bangor, thousands of troops and police were stationed around central Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, according to The Associated Press. Squads of soldiers and several armored vehicles were positioned inside the grounds of the state palace after days of protests against soaring food prices. Also, calls for self-determination in the provinces of Irian Jaya, formerly Dutch New Guinea, and East Timor, the former Portuguese colony, have mounted over the summer.

Campbell-Nelson has been a member of the faculty of theology of Artha Wacana Christian University and a minister in the Protestant Church of Timor since 1983. Since 1995, he has been on sabbatical, living in Greenville, Mass., serving as pastor of two rural churches and teaching at Bangor Theological Seminary’s Portland campus. He is scheduled to return to his job, funded by Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church, at the seminary in Kupang, Timor, in January.

“I went back for a visit in July,” he said in an interview before the convocation service. “People now have the opportunity to be part of the political process, but they don’t know what they want government to be. They do not have a clear vision of what democracy is or how to go about getting it. There is talk about having dialogues about the democratic process at the village level in churches, because they serve as community centers.

“There is also great concern about how to pay faculty and staff, as well as whether students will be able to afford to continue,” he added, noting that a year’s tuition had been equal to the cost of a cow before the current crisis. “Prices have doubled and tripled. Money is worth one-sixth of what it was six months ago, and the worst hasn’t hit yet. … There are shortages of necessities like milk and wheat, as well as diskettes and printer ink for computers. The faculty is talking about not requiring printed theses because ink’s just too expensive.”

Timor is one of Indonesia’s most southern islands, northwest of Australia. A small island, it was colonized by Dutch and Portuguese traders in the 17th century. The western half of the province became part of Indonesia after World War II and in 1975, East Timor declared itself independent. The next year, however, Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor, forcing thousands into resettlement camps.

“We began getting students at the seminary from East Timor a few years ago,” said Campbell-Nelson, “so we could no longer pretend it didn’t exist. Most of the [west] Timorese had no idea what the reality there was. All they knew was the government propaganda. Once the students from East Timor found the courage to speak up, it did a lot to open the eyes of others to the abuses taking place in East Timor.”

Campbell-Nelson’s lecture, titled “Our Common Humanity: Learning from a Third World Church,” professed that looking at the things that bind human beings together was one way “to come a little closer to understanding God.” He urged his audience to seek out our “common humanity despite what seems strange and symbolic” in other cultures’ practice of Christianity.

“Doing theology with Christians who are culturally very different from us,” he told students and faculty, “is the surest way to discover the cracks, holes and mold in our own theology and let in some needed light. … Now that we are part of a global economy, we’d better learn to be part of a global humanity.”