Religion, Law, And Pentecostalism In Indonesia

Pneuma 34 (2012) 57-74

Religion, Law, and Pentecostalism in Indonesia

Christine E. Gudorf

Department of Religious Studies, Florida International University

DM 305A, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, Florida 33199

Abstract

Since Indonesian independence the state has attempted to protect freedom of religious practice by managing religions, and has enacted many religious regulations. Three of those regulations which especially impact the work of Pentecostals are the limits on financial aid from abroad, the ban on proselyzation, and the requirement for FKUB permits for building houses of worship. Because of these regulations, Pentecostal spread in Indonesia is both generally suspect, and a further problem for the state Ministry of Religion, charged with maintaining religious stability.

Keywords

Indonesia, building permits, evangelization, Ministry of Religion

There have been two waves of Pentecostalism into Indonesia, the first begin- ning in the 1920s,1 decades before independence, and the second major wave starting in the late 1970s and cresting following the fall of the Soeharto govern- ment and the beginnings of democratic government in 1998.2 For purposes of this article and the research study upon which it is based, Pentecostal churches are understood to include both waves. The synods included are Gereja Bethel Indonesia (GBI, Indonesia Bethel Church), Gereja Isa Almasih (GIA, The Isa Almasih Church), Gereja Sidang Jemaat Allah (GSJA, Assembly of God Church); Gereja Bethel Injil Sepenuh (GBIS, Bethel Full Gospel Church); Gereja Pentako- sta Pusat Surabaya (GPPS, Central Pentecostal Church of Surabaya); Gereja Gerakan Pentakosta (GGP, Pentecostal Movement Church); Gereja Utusan Pen- takosta di Indonesia (GUPI, Ambassador Pentecostal Church); Gereja Tuhan di

1 Theodore van den End and J. Weitjens, Ragi Carita 2: Sejarah Gerejah di Indonesia — 1860 — sekarang ( Jakarta: BPK Gunung Mulya, 2002), 271.

2 Jan Aritonang and Karel Steenbrink, “The Spectacular Growth of the Pentecostals in Indone- sia,” Chapter 18 in A History of Christianity in Indonesia (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 868-70.

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Indonesia (Church of God in Indonesia), Gereja Bethany Indonesia (Indonesian Bethany Church), Gereja Tiberias Indonesia (Indonesian Tiberias Church), and Gereja Tabernakel Indonesia (Indonesian Tabernacle Church), and all other Christian churches calling themselves Pentecostal, belonging to PGPI, practic- ing tongues, and/or believing in Spirit baptism and its charisms.

It is important to understand the general outlines of the religious context in Indonesia before reviewing the current situation of Pentecostalism with regard to Indonesian law and politics. When Indonesia gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1949, a debate ensued over whether shari’a law, Muslim reli- gious law, should be incorporated into Indonesian civil law. While it was decided that civil law would not incorporate shari’a law, neither was there enshrined in the constitution any separation of religion and state. The Indone- sian Constitution declared that all Indonesians are monotheists and guaran- teed complete freedom to practice one’s religion.

Civil law since has recognized five religions: Islam (claimed by 88 percent of the 230 million citizens), Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, and (Protestant) Christianity. Catholics and Christians constitute 8 to 9 percent, with the remaining millions divided between Hindus and Buddhists.3 Citizens must declare one of these religions (for most, it is noted on birth certificates: the child of Muslims is Muslim, and so on), which is then noted on all personal identity papers. None of the Indonesian tribal religions is recognized as a reli- gion; they are considered cultures, but not religions. Only the imported “world” religions are recognized. All schools, public and private, K-12, must teach religion; each student must be taught in the religion in which he or she is registered.4

Well aware that religious diversity had already fueled conflict under Dutch colonial rule and was likely to continue to fuel conflict in the future, Indone- sian state planners at the time of independence created a Ministry of Religion (MoRA), whose job was and still is to manage relations between religions and to keep tensions controlled. As a part of this maintenance of cordial relations among religions, major holidays of all five recognized religions (Confucianism is sometimes named as a sixth — its status has recently gone up and down) are celebrated as national holidays. This, of course, makes for many national holi- days in Indonesia. A major public celebration of any one religion will feature not only officials from the Ministry of Religion, but also representatives of other

3 These figures are taken from the 2005 Indonesian National Population Survey; the 2010 cen- sus data will be released in October 2011.

4 Aritonang and Steenbrink, “The Spectacular Growth of the Pentecostals in Indonesia,” 907.

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major religions in prominent, acknowledged positions. Religion is definitely not private in Indonesia — it is as public as it can be, and is treated as such in everyday conversation. It is not considered at all rude to ask the religion of a newly met person.

Regulations on religious registry were tightened in 1966 following the aborted 1965 communist coup, the suppression of which initiated widespread slaughter and property expropriation. The government now pushed more forcefully religious registration by citizens, in the belief that religious member- ship prevented communist membership. As a response to the carnage and repression of 1965, many Indonesians became Christian. Catholicism received the biggest boost in numbers; one reason often given for this was the well- known antipathy of Christianity, especially Catholicism, to communism. (It was hoped that such registration could help keep one above suspicion of com- munism. The Catholic Church also, unlike most of the Dutch Protestant ones, had supported the Indonesian revolution against Dutch colonialism, and so was seen as patriotic.)

In the 2010 census, for the first time, persons were given the option of select- ing “Other” in response to the question as to one’s religion, in addition to the traditional options of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, and (Protestant) Christian. However, the census does not distinguish Pentecostals from other Protestants. Though area supervisors were informed of the addition of the new possibility of “Other,” many of the door-to-door census takers who were tem- porary local workers did not inform citizen households of this option; in fact, many of them, due to poor training, did not even know of it themselves. Regard- less, there is some speculation that this census option might be the second break in the Indonesian policy of managing religions, the first having been the partial, off-and-now-on-again recognition of Confucianism as an Indonesian religion.

The Current Context of Indonesian State Religion Policy

In spring 2010, the explosion of Pentecostalism in Asia was a cover story for the Asian market of Time magazine; a significant part of the story focused on Indo- nesia.5 Indonesian Pentecostalism continues both to grow and to become more

5 Hannah Beech, “Christianity’s Surge in Indonesia,” Time magazine, April 26, 2010. http:// time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1982223,00.html#ixzz0ld1nYE1S.

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public, however unevenly,6 thereby ensuring that even more global attention is turned to Indonesian Pentecostalism. This occurs in the midst of a strong revival of Indonesian Islam that began in the last decades of the twentieth cen- tury, which, according to Robert W. Hefner, is a part of a general religious revival occurring across Asia.7 The religious situation in Indonesia has thus become increasingly complex, increasingly tense, and increasingly difficult for the Min- istry of Religion to manage as its traditional policies are criticized from all sides. Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on spreading the gospel and gathering new members, represents one of the central challenges within the Ministry of Reli- gion’s task of maintaining religious harmony in Indonesia, but Pentecostalism is far from constituting the only challenge facing the Ministry. Indonesian reli- gion scholars, mostly Muslim, are increasingly questioning the justice of deny- ing rights of citizenship to those Indonesians who have not adopted one of the five recognized religions, as well as the related refusal of the state to recognize indigenous religions as religions.8

Tied to this discussion is the issue of religious conversion. Western approaches understand the right to choose a religion — including the right to convert to a new one — as a central democratic right. Doubtless influenced by Islam, which has traditionally forbidden conversion away from Islam under pain of death and prevents female Muslims from marrying Christians or Jews, a privilege allowed their Muslim brothers,9 Indonesian law aims to prevent conversion by banning proselytization. In support of this policy, state regula- tions allow neither changing the religion listed on one’s identity card nor regis- tering most interreligious marriages. Increasingly, educated Indonesians, many of whom have travelled and studied abroad, and the young, who are socialized by global media, are uncomfortable with these restrictions on individual reli- gious freedom in Indonesian law.

6 While some Pentecostal churches have extensive media presence, others are extremely covert, to the extent of having no signage on their buildings, or even false fronts.

7 Robert W. Hefner, “Religious Resurgence in Contemporary Asia: Southeast Asian Perspec- tives on Capitalism, the State, and the New Piety,” Journal of Asian Studies 69, no. 4 (November 2010): 1031-1047.

8 See the 2003 M.A. thesis of Syamsul Maarif at the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies at Gadjah Mada University and his forthcoming dissertation at Arizona State University, both on the religious, political, and legal situation of the Ammatoa of Sulawesi. Not only have a number of scholars investigated the situation of the Ammatoa, but there are a number of scholars working from the perspective of numerous other tribes on this issue of religious freedom for the indigenous.

9 Qur’an 5:5 allows Muslim men to take Jewish or Christian as well as Muslim wives, but later fiqh restricted Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims.

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There is also a small presence of radical Islam in Indonesia, not to mention some moderate Muslims who would like to see shari’a law “protected” in civil law. Though the majority of citizens, including both of the large Muslim organizations,10 do not support incorporation of shari’a law into civil law, the autonomy law that followed the 1998 turn to democracy has allowed some localities to require features of shari’a law, such as veiling of women. Currently, a national law is proposed that would require halal labeling of all imported or processed food. This proposal is strongly supported by Muslim “clerical” orga- nizations, each one of which is lobbying to be appointed the group that would be paid to do the testing and labeling. Exempt from the law would be the food sold by vendors in the streets — which makes up a large part of the diet of ordinary Indonesians.

Pentecostalism and Religious Regulation in Indonesia

As a part of managing any tensions among religions, Indonesia has issued a number of laws and regulations. Three of those regulations that particularly impact the activities of Pentecostalism are the regulation banning proselytiza- tion, the regulation requiring official permission to build houses of worship, and the restrictions placed on religious organizations receiving funds from outside the country. The first two of these are much more problematic than the restrictions on outside funding of religious organizations.

First, the regulation forbidding proselytization. All religions are forbidden to spread their membership to any except those without religion. This has his- torically meant that the tribal groups were fair game for missionaries from all the religions, and effectively it has produced competition among Muslims, Catholics, and Protestant Christians for converts in some tribal areas. At the same time that these religions have sent missionaries to tribal groups, the gov- ernment has continuously pressured tribal groups to affiliate with one of the recognized religions — a process that is part of becoming recognized as a citi- zen with identity papers and government registration. Despite Indonesian law, however, there has been less Pentecostal outreach to the tribal areas of Indone- sia than to the cities.11 From its early years in Cepu and Surabaya in Java, Pente-

10 The two national Muslim organizations are Mohammadiayah, largely modernist with approximately 30 million members, and its much larger sister organization N.U. (Nahdlatul Ulama), which is more traditional and has about 40 million members.

11 While there are Pentecostal missionaries in tribal areas, the vast majority of Pentecostal ministers have always been in the cities.

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costalism has been more or less associated with cities, especially cities in which other forms of Christianity were already established. Many of the strongest critics of Pentecostalism in Indonesia today are other Christian groups, for Pen- tecostals have attracted most, but not all, of their members from the other Christian groups, often insisting that their role is to bring the full gospel to those who have only been partially christianized. Most Pentecostals recognize other Christians as having water baptism, but they insist that this is an initial baptism; baptism in the Holy Spirit is separate from water baptism for all except Jesus, and baptism in the Holy Spirit is the center of Pentecostalism. Some Pentecostal churches, but only some, do not recognize even the water baptisms of other Christian churches, but rebaptize their converts. This infuri- ates Catholics and mainstream Christians, who have worked for many decades, even centuries, cultivating and baptizing Indonesian members. But in terms of the law, making converts from Catholic or other Christian groups is definitely safer than targeting the majority Muslim population. Targeting Muslims, when such acts are publicized, can result in both mob violence and heavy pressure on the government to enforce the law.12 Over the decades, some foreigners have been expelled from Indonesia for attempting to convert Muslims.

There is a great deal of speculation, not yet supported by data, that the more recently founded neo-Pentecostal churches,13 especially the megachurches, are both more likely to preach the gospel of prosperity and to issue open invita- tions to the general public, and thus most likely, of all Pentecostal churches, to attract those of non-Christian background. We will see at the conclusion of our study.

The second regulation that a number of Pentecostal groups have difficulty with is the restrictions on building houses of worship. In 2006, as part of a revi- sion of the 1969 government regulations on harmony among religions, the Indonesian government through MoRA, the Department of Domestic Affairs and General Attorney, set up district provincial committees, called FKUBs (Forum Komunikasi Umat Beragama — Communication Forums between Religious Adherents), which were made up of representatives of the various

12 Mob protests and violence are not limited to active efforts to convert Muslims, however; some radical Muslim groups, especially in West Java, are determined that there should be no churches whatsoever in what is “Muslim space.”

13 Most often an integration of Charismatic teaching into Pentecostal church organization, neo-Pentecostalism mostly includes the major breakaways from the Gereja Bethel Indonesia (Indonesian Bethel Church), the Gereja Bethany Indonesia (Indonesian Bethany Church), Gereja Tiberias Indonesia (Indonesian Tiberias Church), and Gereja Tabernakel Indonesia (Indonesian Tabernacle Church).

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religions. These FKUBs were empowered to give permission for building local houses of worship, power that had previously been vested in the Ministry of Religion. Pentecostals have had difficulty in many locales in getting permission to build, both before and after the establishment of the FKUBs. Pentecostal churches are often cited as flouting the law both by building without permis- sion and, more often, for evading the law by renting auditoriums in malls, hotels, and conference centers to use for worship. The situation is complex; the FKUBs are both more just and more effective in some locations than in others; the one in Surabaya is generally praised, while those in Jakarta and Yogyakarta are acknowledged even by non-Pentecostals as more arbitrary and even peri- odically inactive.

The third government policy that potentially impacts Pentecostalism is severe restrictions on religious organizations receiving financial support from outside the nation. It is difficult to know to what extent this affects Pentecos- tals compared to other Christian churches or even to other religions. It is well known, for example, that in the last two decades the Saudi government has donated the funds to build hundreds of mosques and schools in Indonesia in an attempt to move the nation in the direction of Wahhabi ultra-conservative Muslim orthodoxy. In the past, foreign support of Indonesian churches has been closely linked, for both Pentecostals and all other Christian churches, to the influx of foreign missionaries. For its first forty to fifty years, Pentecostal- ism, like other Christian churches, did depend, though less and less over time, on foreign missionaries and the funds to which they had access. But contempo- rary Pentecostalism, and especially neo-Pentecostalism, has gone native. While there are many exchanges of preachers and even media-stars between Pente- costal churches in Indonesia and elsewhere, the contemporary imports are now seldom from the U.S., Holland, or other developed nations, but rather from Asia — from Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines.14 As often as not, these media-stars do not bring money with them, but may actually take some back from their public performances.

Current Research

In 2010 the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Institute at the University of Southern California conferred a grant on two Indonesians and one American

14 Barbara Watson Andaya, “Contextualizing the Global: Exploring the Roots of Pentecostalism in Indonesia and Malaysia,” paper delivered at the Symposium on Managing and Marketing of Globalizing Asian Religions, August 11-14, 2009, 3.

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to study Indonesian Pentecostal/Charismatic churches. The three P.I.s15 trained five fieldworkers and sent them to five selected cities in Indonesia: Jakarta, the capital in Java; Yogyakarta, a university city also in Java; Surabaya, the Javanese city that was an early center of Pentecostalism in Indonesia; Medan, a major city in Sumatra; and Manado, a city and district in Sulawesi with a Christian majority. Findings to date include repeated observations of well over 100 Pen- tecostal churches, more than 1,000 member surveys, and intensive interviews with 41 pastors. While we will continue to collect data for another eight months, a few trends are already very clear. I will focus on those findings related to the three issues named above: external support of churches, proselytization, and building houses of worship.

Financial Support

Only four of the forty-one pastors interviewed reported ever having had exter- nal financial assistance for their church, and only one currently had such aid, which he insisted was a small part of the church’s budget. The pastors believed that the assumption of external aid was a holdover from the time when Pente- costal pastors were missioners from abroad. Now that virtually all are Indone- sian, “From where would we get such aid?” demanded one pastor. However, some Christian evangelical groups working in Indonesia are financed abroad; they include the Joshua Project, which targets ethnic communities around the world with the fewest followers of Christ; Lampstand (Beja Kabunghan), started by an American missionary in 1969 to convert the Sundanese of West Java; Partners International, a Spokane, Washington-based group that supports Vision Indonesia 1.1.1 (one church for one village in one generation); Frontiers, an Arizona-based organization; and the Orlando-based Campus Crusade for Christ’s Indonesian branch, Lembaga Pelayanan Mahasiswa Indonesia.16

While there are few known ties between these foreign-financed groups and Indonesian Pentecostal churches, Yayasan Mahanaim is Pentecostal, well funded with Indonesian monies, and active in conversion of non-Christians. Yayasan is an Indonesian organization, part of a network of Pentecostal orga- nizations across Java run by a family of ethnic Chinese origin. It focuses on ministering to the poor, especially street children, and has set up shelters on Sulawesi and Papua as well as Java. It operates an orphanage and a school that

15 Zainal Bagir, Martin Tahun, and Christine E. Gudorf.

16 International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: ‘Christianization’ and Intolerance,” Asian Policy Briefing #114, Jakarta/Brussels, November 24, 2010, 2-3. http://crisisgroup.org/en/publication- type/reports.aspx?year=2010&page=1.

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gives scholarships to poor students from kindergarten through senior high. Other parts of the family network operate radio preaching programs, built and operate a stadium for tens of thousands in Semarang for revivals, and support an organization that promotes preaching among youth.17

Yayasan is extremely controversial, perhaps because although its funding does not come from outside Indonesia, it appears very visible and successful at conversion, and its ethnic origin makes it additionally suspect in Indonesia. Yayasan is accused of buying converts with Chinese money. Pentecostal churches, even more than other Christian churches, are often charged with creating “rice Christians,” or attracting new members by distributions of food and other aid. This is a difficult issue. In general, the poor in Indonesia are con- sidered Muslim, regardless of the fact that most of the very rich are Muslim, too. Christians by and large are not among the poorest, and most Christian churches understand themselves as required by the love commandment to care for the poor. While historically global Pentecostal churches attracted pre- dominantly the poor, but have not been distinguished by social programs for the poor,18 that has been changing a great deal, certainly in Indonesia. Some Pentecostal churches, not only the Yayasan movement, are extremely active in social programs,19 and the economic class of members has become much more varied in Indonesia as it is in other parts of the world. Today, our surveys indi- cate that the average Indonesian Pentecostal has a somewhat higher income than the average Indonesian, though Indonesian Pentecostals range from the richest to the poorest citizens.

Popular understandings of connections between Pentecostal and other Christian social programs for the poor and religious conversion are compli- cated by the role of the Chinese in Indonesia. Indonesians of Chinese ancestry, early converts to Pentecostalism, have long been prominent in the import/ export business in Indonesia, and are generally considered rich. There is intense resentment of the Chinese and of the close ties they had until 1998 to the Indonesian government. As is generally the case with such popular assump- tions, contrary to popular belief, the Chinese population does also include poor and lower middle class. Chinese Indonesians are not by any means all rich, though a majority Chinese church is likely to be comparatively wealthy and is certainly deemed so by Christians and Muslims alike.

17 Ibid., 3.

18 Joseph L. Suico, “Pentecostalism and Social Change,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Theology 8, no. 2 (2005): 198-99.

19 Ibid., 207-9; International Crisis Group, 6.

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In the repression of the 1965 coup, the Chinese were generally assumed to be communist and suffered most severely of all social groups. In the riots of 1998 that ended the Soeharto regime and brought an opening to democratic govern- ment to Indonesia, the Chinese were again the most prominent targets of assaults, rapes, and destruction of property. The fact that the Chinese, arguably the most Christian of all ethnic groups in Indonesia,20 early on joined Pente- costal churches in large numbers is one source of the assumption of Pentecos- tal riches.

It is difficult for any Christian church, Pentecostal or not, to refute the charge of “buying” converts, for if they limit their aid to the poor in their own congre- gation, they are resented and criticized for ignoring those in greatest need. If they distribute aid outside their own membership, they are charged with troll- ing for new members with aid. If the church has any significant Chinese mem- bership, it is certain to be damned if it distributes aid outside its membership, and damned if it does not.

Good relations with near neighbors are essential for all Christian churches in Indonesia, both practically as protection against violence and vandalism, and formally, because of the need for signature support from neighbors in order to be permitted to build. One of the most common ways of being accepted by Muslim neighbors is donating food or funding for the Idul Fitri holiday at the end of Ramadan. But there are dangers in the distribution, whether the church distributes directly to individual households (because some will inevi- tably be left out) or to neighborhood associations (some of which will only distribute to family and friends). Those households which do not receive are often resentful.

Similarly, Catholics have established many schools in Indonesia that are generally recognized as much superior to virtually all public schools. They therefore attract many non-Catholics who want good education for their chil- dren. The church regards the relatively low tuition and scholarships for non- Catholics as part of their care for non-Catholic neighbors, but some others, especially Muslims, see this as another attempt to convert Muslims. Among the more than one thousand Pentecostal respondents in our study, only 9.5 percent of members were presently receiving church support of some kind, and another 12.8 percent were not now but had received it in the past. This means that over 75 percent of these Pentecostals have never received any

20 The other principal contender is the Minahasa tribe of Manado, Sulawesi, which is exten- sively intermarried with Chinese.

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Table 1. Receive Aid from This Pentecostal Church?

Previous Church

or Religion No Yes, Now Yes, In Past Total

Pentecostal 64% 8.5% 10.4% 82.9% Catholic 10.8% .96% .3% 12.06% Protestant .96% 0 .13% 1.09% Muslim .41% 0 0 .41% Hindu or Buddhist .13% 0 0 .13% Total 76.3% 9.46% 10.83% 96.59%

kind of aid from their church, either before or after they became members. When we ran cross-tabs of previous church/religious membership with receiv- ing aid from this Pentecostal church, we did not find that aid played a signifi- cant role in conversion. On the contrary, none of the Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist converts had ever received aid from the Pentecostal church they joined, only one in seven non-Pentecostal Protestant converts had ever received aid, and only one in every eight Catholic converts had ever received aid from their Pentecostal church. By far the largest proportion of aid had been received by those who had always been Pentecostals.

Proselytization

In our member surveys to date, slightly more than one third (35.9 percent) report that all their family members are Pentecostal, while 19.5 percent report that no other family member is Pentecostal, and the remaining members have some (24.7 percent) or most (19.1 percent) of their family in their church. Clearly, some conversion has been occurring. Yet, 84.1 percent reported that they had always belonged to a Pentecostal church; if “always” includes people’s minority, then the only way to reconcile these two responses is that many Pen- tecostal families have been losing members to other churches or religions. Of those who did claim a previous denomination or religion, 14.1 percent had been Catholic, 1.0 percent non-Pentecostal Protestant, only 0.1 percent had been Muslim, and 0.4 percent Hindu or Buddhist. The Muslim figure is tremendously low, considering that Muslims constitute 88 percent of the population. But the 2005 Pew Forum study of Pentecostalism in ten nations found that in Nigeria, the only nation in the study with a significant Muslim population, only 2 percent

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of Pentecostals had converted from Islam,21 even though a 2009 survey showed that 50.4 percent of Nigeria’s population were Muslims.22 Lacking statistics on Pentecostal conversion in other nations with large Muslim populations, we can only speculate that perhaps Pentecostals have lower success rates at con- verting Muslims — who are in the midst of their own global revival — than they do members of other religions.

Many of the newest, largest, best-publicized Pentecostal churches in Indo- nesia are believed to be more interested in or open toward drawing converts from other religions. Thus far it is clear that the highest rates of Pentecostal conversion are among Indonesian Catholics, that non-Pentecostal Protestant resentment at Pentecostal “poaching” has some basis, but that Muslim fears of Pentecostalism targeting Muslims for conversion are probably exaggerated. On the other hand, asked how important it is for their Pentecostal church to grow its membership, 83.7 percent responded that it was Very Important, 14.8 per- cent said Somewhat Important, and 0.8 percent Not Important. Asked whether they were personally involved in spreading the gospel, 91.9 percent answered Yes and 6.6 percent No. Given the constant interaction in Indonesian society among persons with different religions, Pentecostal member investment in spreading the gospel is likely the basis of Muslim fears.

On a number of issues involving relations with other religions, Indonesian Pentecostals demonstrated that their attitudes, like those of the majority of Indonesians, are very tolerant. This is in contrast to the attitudes of some of the other missionizing organizations from abroad: one Campus Crusade for Christ affiliate at a training session in Batu, Malang, East Java in December 2006 placed a Qur’an on the floor and held a public exorcism of the demons alleg- edly resident in it.23 When our respondents were asked if the public school teacher of their child were not Pentecostal, from which religion would they prefer him or her to come, 36.7 percent of our respondents chose non- Pentecostal Christians, 1.9 percent chose Catholics, 1.0 percent chose Muslims, and 57.3 percent responded that they had no problem with teachers from any other religion. To the question with what group would they be the least com- fortable as a teacher for their child, 21 percent chose Muslims, 8.5 percent chose non-Pentecostal Christians, 5.5 percent chose Hindus/Buddhists/Confucians,

21 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Spirit and Power: A Ten Country Survey of Pente- costals,” October 2006. http://pewforum.org/Christian/Evangelical-Protestant-Churches/Spirit- and-Power.aspx.

22 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Mapping the Global Muslim Population,” October 7, 2009. http://pewforum.org/Muslim/Mapping-the-Global-Muslim-Population.aspx.

23 The pastor and most of the participants were arrested. (International Crisis Group, 3).

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0.5 percent chose Catholics, and 60.6 percent responded that they were com- fortable with teachers from all of these religions.

Our surveys also detected some consciousness of shared moral concerns between Pentecostals and Muslims. For example, when asked their attitude toward certain local shari’a-inspired laws, 19.3 percent disagreed with such laws as a form of discrimination and 10.6 percent agreed with them if they only applied to Muslims, but 48.4 percent agreed with the shari’a-inspired laws as protecting important moral values. Nineteen and nine-tenths had no opinion. Many Indonesian Pentecostals evidently see themselves as sharing important moral values with the Muslim community.

Our fieldworkers discovered a number of churches who insist on covertness: they have no signage, no media presence, and are very suspicious of newcom- ers. While the covertness of these Pentecostal churches might suggest some fear of persecution by the larger society, only half of Pentecostal members see it as either Very Important (25 percent) or Somewhat Important (28.3 percent) to have a political party to represent their views. Asked how their church sup- ports them in elections, 67.2 percent said that their church does not speak of politics, while only 8.5 percent said the church suggests parties or candidates, 8.9 percent said their church supports candidates of Pentecostal background, and 13.2 percent said their church guides them on issues relevant to religion. This spread is indicative of the trend that is moving Indonesian Pentecostals, as Pentecostals globally, more and more away from political quietism toward political activism, a trend that appears to be associated with growing num- bers.24 In some places in Indonesia, not exclusively Christian-majority Manado, Pentecostals are running for local office in moderately large numbers, though few have as yet been elected.

Overall, while there is clearly growth in Pentecostal churches — Aritonang estimates that of the 17 million Indonesian Protestants, at least six million are Pentecostal25 — and the strong member interest in spreading Pentecostalism sits in tension with Indonesian regulation of religion, there is no evidence in Indonesian Pentecostalism of extraordinary methods of evangelism that would or should be considered suspect.

Building Houses of Worship

According to the governmental regulation26 establishing FKUBs in 2006, houses of worship were supposed to be built based on need (at least ninety documented

24 See Suico, “Pentecostalism and Social Change,” 203-4.

25 Aritonang and Steenbrink, “The Spectacular Growth of the Pentecostals in Indonesia,” 868. 26 Joint Resolution 8/9 of the Home Affairs and Religious Affairs Ministries, Indonesia.

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members), supported by signatures of at least sixty community members of different faiths, and approved by the district religious affairs office, after which the permission of the newly established district religious harmony forum (FKUB) was required. This requirement has been interpreted differently by dif- ferent religious groups. Many Muslims have interpreted the requirement of need to mean that no Christian houses of worship should be built in Muslim majority neighborhoods.27 Christians of all denominations, who are spread very thinly and are not majorities in any area outside Manado, interpret the regulations to mean that when a denomination needs either a new or an addi- tional house of worship, it should be built in the neighborhood closest to the center of the membership. Due to this difference in interpreting the regula- tions governing FKUBs, there are frequently Muslim protests about the build- ing of new Christian churches even in those cases where FKUB permission has been obtained.

An additional reason for such protests is that while many, but not all, Indo- nesian Muslims recognize the governmental distinction between Catholics and Christians, few recognize divisions among Protestants; for most Muslims, Protestants are indistinguishable. They therefore assume that if a Baptist church already exists in an area, there is no need to build a Lutheran or Pente- costal church. Even moderate Muslim groups frequently ask how it is possible that any church grows so much that they need new churches if they are obey- ing the law forbidding proselytization — and if they are not, why should their larger numbers be accommodated?

Within FKUBs, membership is proportional, so it is common to have one Protestant, one Catholic, one Hindu, one Buddhist, and a dozen or more Mus- lims. Christian building permits are most often denied (often by inaction last- ing years, even decades) by Muslim membership in FKUBs, especially in areas where radical anti-Christian Muslim organizations28 are strong — for example, in West Java. When Pentecostal building permits are blocked, however, it is not always due to Muslim groups within the FKUB, but sometimes due to opposi- tion from other Christians. Because other Christian denominations resent Pen- tecostal poaching within their flocks, and additionally resent that some

27 See “Muslims in Bekasi, Indonesia Oppose Another Church Building,” October 13, 2010, http:///compassdirect.org/english/country/Indonesia/26879 (1/29/2011) and also Samuel Rionaldo, “Muslim Groups Demand Closure of Large Legal Church,” February 25, 2010. http:// religionnewsblog.com/24122/indonesia-muslim-groups-demand-closure-of-large-legal- church (1/25/2011).

28 The FPI (Islamic Defenders’ Front), the Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia, the Indone- sian Mujahadin Council, and Forum Imat Islam.

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Pentecostal churches rebaptize Christians from the mainstream churches as if they had not been properly baptized before, Pentecostal interests are seldom represented on the FKUBs. The Protestant seats on the FKUBs are largely filled by representatives from PGI (Persekutuan Gereja-gereja di Indonesia — Association of [Protestant] Churches of Indonesia) and PII (Persekutuan Injili Indonesia-Indonesian Evangelical Association).29 The PGPI (Persekutuan Gereja Pentakosta di Indonesia — Association of Pentecostal Churches of Indo- nesia) is not fully recognized or integrated into the FKUB structure of most districts, though there are some exceptions.30 The non-Pentecostals who are selected to represent the Protestant churches in their district or province are not always supporters of Pentecostal applications for building permits. One factor that aggravates the situation further is the independence of many Pentecostal churches. While there are over two hundred Pentecostal synods, many with hundreds of thousands of members, a few with millions of mem- bers, there are also many independent Pentecostal churches founded by char- ismatic pastors. More centralized denominations, even including many Baptists, themselves well known for the independence of their churches, are not willing to recognize a second or third Pentecostal church in a district and allow it to build as if it were a separate denomination. Yet, from the perspective of most Pentecostals, the word Pentecostal is only loosely descriptive; it does not signify membership in a single nationally or internationally organized church. The fact that there is one Pentecostal church, much less another Chris- tian church, in a district should not prevent a new Pentecostal church getting permission to build.

Though many observers, perhaps influenced by Pentecostal history, believe that the majority of Indonesian Pentecostal churches do not belong to ecu- menical organizations, thus far in our research this view is not supported. Among our respondent churches, only 5 percent belonged to none of the three associations, and 20 percent belonged only to the Pentecostal organization

29 PGI (Association of [Protestant] Churches in Indonesia) is the most inclusive of the Protes- tant ecumenical groups in Indonesia; only eight of its eighty-eight- member synods are Pentecos- tal. Only twenty of the eighty-two church synods of the PII (Indonesian Evangelical Association) are Pentecostal. Pentecostals are seldom chosen as the representatives of either the PII or PGI. Seventy-four Pentecostal church synods belong to the PGPI, the Association of Pentecostal Churches of Indonesia, the organization that resulted from the merger of the two principal Pen- tecostal church organizations that traced their history back to the first Pentecostal missionaries in 1919.

30 For more on these organizations, see Steven H. Talumeu, Sejarah Gerakan Pentakosta (Yog- yakarta: Andi, 2008), 61; BAKI (Buku Almanak Kristen Indonesia) 2010 ( Jakarta: Bidang Koinonia, PGI, 2009), 349.

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PGPI; 80 percent belonged to at least two of these organizations, most often PGPI and either the evangelical organization PII (Persekutuan Injili Indonesia), or the all-inclusive Protestant organization PGI (Persekutuan Gereja-gereja di Indonesia). Again, this finding corresponds to signs of growing ecumenism among Pentecostals in other parts of the globe.31

Related to the issue of permission to build houses of worship are the reports of our fieldworkers in a number of cities that it is impossible to find many Pen- tecostal churches unless one has a member guide. Even churches with rela- tively large membership often have no signage signaling their location, no steeples or crosses indicating their presence. A few Pentecostal houses of wor- ship even have false fronts with signs of commercial enterprises showing to the public. In some places this covertness might be due to the fact that the church does not have a FKUB permit for a house of worship. One requirement for obtaining a permit is the support of at least sixty households in the immediate area, and sometimes those who would otherwise be supportive are intimidated by Muslim opponents, who are sometimes from outside the immediate area.32 Another factor in the mix is that some Pentecostal churches who have in the past experienced hostility, even violence, usually at the hands of small, local, radical Muslim groups, have become covert even when they do have FKUB permission for their house of worship. The tendency to covertness in some churches may have been heightened by the fact that in some but not all tradi- tional (that is, pre-1980) Pentecostal churches a prominent part of the mem- bership consists of Chinese Indonesians,victims of violence and repression not only nationally in 1965 and 1998 but locally before and since.

The FKUB permit issue continues to arise as churches become more estab- lished, and congregations outgrow their first spaces and must apply to build a new larger space. Such decisions are often postponed as long as possible by resorting to multiple Sunday services: the Aletheia Church of Yogyakarta (now about to move into a new building), like many other growing Pentecostal churches, has gradually raised the number of Sunday services, all overflowing, to four, beginning at 6:00 am, in a pattern historically more common in Catho- lic churches than Pentecostal ones. A very few Pentecostal church buildings seem to have become legal through the time-honored Indonesian path of brib- ery, negotiating aid to neighbors for their support, and even negotiating deals with FKUB members for their approval. In a society where it has been difficult

31 Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 253-58.

32 International Crisis Group, 5-7.

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Table 2. Paid a Bribe in the Last Three Years?

Response Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Never 72.9 72.9 74.3 Yes, Once 16.3 16.3 90.7 Yes, Twice 2.7 2.7 93.4 Yes, 3X or More 6.0 6.0 99.5 Total 100.0 100.0

to renew a driver’s license without paying a bribe, where police have been known to block roads and only let cars pass after paying a bribe, the Pentecos- tals we surveyed stood strongly against paying bribes. See the responses in the chart above to the survey question: In the last three years, how many times have you paid a bribe (to renew driver’s license, vehicle registration, avoid a ticket)?

Many churches, with this same resistance to bribery as their members, have trod the straight and narrow path but been blocked from a building permit for years. In the meantime they have rented space, most notably in malls, which then earns them the charge of evading the law. Some of the churches that orig- inally turned to malls out of frustration at being unable to get permission to build have decided that malls are perhaps a better path. They are convenient: everyone knows how to get to the malls. Obtaining the space is a simple com- mercial transaction compared to the labyrinthine process of obtaining build- ing permission. Since malls tend to have excellent security, there is also a perception of safety about such locations, certainly security against vandalism if not mob protests. Many members like to be able to worship, shop, and dine in the same place.

On the other hand, there are some new, large, modern Pentecostal church buildings, especially in Jakarta and major cities, that are publicly lavish and constantly publicized — most of which obtained FKUB permission but some who did not. One example of a large Pentecostal church that did receive a building permit is the Bethany synod of Surabaya, whose pastor, the well- known Chinese-Indonesian Alex Tanuseputra, built a megachurch capable of holding twenty thousand persons.33 Pastoral colleagues in other regions wait for over a decade for permits. Many of those without permits for years eventu- ally defy the law in the belief that denial of their appeals for building permits

33 Andaya, “Contextualizing the Global,” 19.

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for a decade or even two decades legitimates their ignoring an unjust law. It remains to be seen what government response, if any, there will be. How do Pentecostals themselves feel about the Indonesian state and its regulation of religion? Pastors we interviewed downplayed, in some cases even denied, any problems with government regulations, and almost to a person denied any threats to their churches or members, even when the researchers had personal knowledge of recent threats. At most, some pastors offered that the FKUB system is riddled with problems and should be reformed. But when asked for specifics, they tended to point to inconsistencies between the FKUB policies of different areas, rather than to the injustice of constantly denied per- mits. In the main, they accept that the goal of government policy is to prevent religious strife and protect all religions. At the same time, though, the most critical of them insist that converting others to Pentecostalism is the center of the Christian love command: banning this is a serious restriction of religious freedom. They wish the government, especially local government, were not so easily intimidated by the relatively small radical Muslim groups and would crack down on their violence and vandalism against churches. But these pas- tors are not rebels; they are loyal Indonesians.

Conclusion

From its first moments of independence, Indonesia’s government organized both to manage and to protect religions. The resulting organization not only assumed more or less static religious membership on the part of both individu- als and religions, but also set in place regulations designed to inhibit conver- sions, regulate external religious influence (at least financial), and segregate worship by the different religions. Population growth in the sixty years since independence has undoubtedly made religious segregation of worship much more difficult, especially in overpopulated Java. But the spread of evangelical Christianity, especially the explosion of Pentecostalism, has added new chal- lenges to Indonesia’s system of regulating religion by defying bans on prosely- tization, by building churches without FKUB permits, as well as by irritating Muslim groups through its distribution of food and charitable programs.

Religion, Law, And Pentecostalism In Indonesia

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