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Indonesia Christianity
Although Christianity--Roman Catholicism and
Protestantism--was
the most rapidly growing religion in Indonesia in the
1980s, its
numbers were small compared to Islam (9 percent of the
population
compared to 86.9 percent Muslim in 1985). Christianity had
a long
history in the islands, with Portuguese Jesuits and
Dominicans
operating in the Malukus, southern Sulawesi, and Timor in
the
sixteenth century. When the Dutch defeated Portugal in
1605,
however, Catholic missionaries were expelled and the
Calvinist
Dutch Reformed Church was virtually the only Christian
influence in
the region for 300 years. Whereas the United East Indies
Company
(VOC) was primarily a secular and not a religious
enterprise, and
because Calvinism was a strict, austere, and
intellectually
uncompromising variety of Christianity that demanded a
thorough
understanding of what, for Indonesians, were foreign
scriptures,
Christianity advanced little in Indonesia until the
nineteenth
century. Only a few small communities endured in Java,
Maluku,
northern Sulawesi, and Nusa Tenggara (primarily Roti and
Timor).
After the dissolution of the VOC in 1799, and the adoption
of a
more comprehensive view of their mission in the
archipelago, the
Dutch permitted proselytizing in the territory. This
evangelical
freedom was put to use by the more tolerant German
Lutherans, who
began work among the Batak of Sumatra in 1861, and by the
Dutch
Rhenish Mission in central Kalimantan and central
Sulawesi. In
addition, Jesuits established successful missions,
schools, and
hospitals throughout the islands of Flores, Timor, and
Alor.
The twentieth century witnessed the influx of many new
Protestant missionary groups, as well as the continued
growth of
Catholicism and of large regional and reformed Lutheran
churches.
Following the 1965 coup attempt, all nonreligious persons
were
labelled atheists and hence were vulnerable to accusations
of
harboring communist sympathies. At that time, Christian
churches of
all varieties experienced explosive growth in membership,
particularly among those people who felt uncomfortable
with the
political aspirations of Islamic parties.
In the 1990s, the majority of Christians in Indonesia
were
Protestants of one affiliation or another, with
particularly large
concentrations found in Sumatra Utara, Irian Jaya, Maluku,
Kalimantan Tengah, Sulawesi Tengah, and Sulawesi Utara.
Catholic
congregations grew less rapidly in the 1980s, in part
because of
the church's heavy reliance on European personnel. These
Europeans
experienced increasing restrictions on their missionary
activities
imposed by the Muslim-dominated Department of Religious
Affairs.
Large concentrations of Roman Catholics were located in
Kalimantan
Barat, Irian Jaya, Nusa Tenggara Timur, and Timor Timur
provinces
(see Local Government
, ch. 4).
Data as of November 1992
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