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Singapore Religious Change
Modernization and improved education levels brought
changes in
religious practice. The inflexible work schedules of
industrialism,
which tended to restrict communal ritual to evenings and
Sundays,
and the lack of opportunity or inclination to devote years
to
mastering ceremonial and esoteric knowledge, both
contributed to a
general tendency toward ritual simplification and
abbreviation. At
the same time, prosperous citizens contributed large sums
to
building funds, and in the 1980s a wave of rebuilding and
refurbishing renewed the city's mosques, churches, Chinese
temples,
Buddhist monasteries, and Hindu temples. Ethnic
affiliation was
demonstrated by public participation in such annual
rituals as
processions, which did not require elaborate training or
study.
Immigrants tended to drop or modify religious and
ritual
practices characteristic of and peculiar to the villages
they had
come from. Hindu temples founded in the nineteenth century
to serve
migrants of specific castes and to house deities
worshipped only in
small regions of southeastern India became the temples
patronized
by all Hindu residents of nearby apartment complexes. They
offered
a generic South Indian Hinduism focused on major deities
and
festivals. Many Chinese became more self-consciously
Buddhist or
joined syncretic cults that promoted ethics and were far
removed
from the exorcism and sacrificial rituals of the villages
of Fujian
and Guangdong. The movement away from village practices
was most
clearly seen and most articulated among the Malays, where
Islamic
reformers acted to replace the customary practices
(adat) of
the various Malay-speaking societies of Java, Sumatra, and
Malaya
with the precepts of classical Islamic law--sharia.
In 1988 the Ministry of Community Development reported
the
religious distribution to be 28.3 percent Buddhist, 18.7
percent
Christian, 17.6 percent no religion, 16 percent Islam,
13.4 percent
Daoist, 9 percent Hindu, and 1.1 percent other religions
(Sikhs,
Parsis, Jews). The Christian proportion of the population
nearly
doubled between 1980 and 1988, growing from 10 percent to
nearly 19
percent. The growth of Christianity and of those
professing no
religion was greatest in the Chinese community, with most
of the
Christian converts being young, well-educated people in
secure
white-collar and professional jobs. Most converts joined
evangelical and charismatic Protestant churches worshiping
in
English. About one-third of the members of Parliament were
Christians, as were many cabinet ministers and members of
the
ruling party, which was dominated by well-educated,
Englishspeaking Chinese. The association of Christianity with
elite social
and political status may have helped attract some
converts.
By the late 1980s, some Buddhist organizations were
winning
converts by following the Protestant churches in offering
services,
hymnbooks, and counseling in English and Mandarin. A
Buddhist
Society at the National University of Singapore offered
lectures
and social activities similar to those of the popular
Christian
Fellowship. Some Chinese secondary students chose Buddhism
as their
compulsory religious studies subject, regarding
Confucianism as too
distant and abstract and Bible study as too Western and
too
difficult. They then were likely to join Buddhist
organizations,
which offered congenial groups, use of English, and a link
with
Asian cultural traditions. In the late 1980s, other
Chinese whitecollar and skilled workers were joining the Japan-based
Soka Gakkai
(Value Creation Society, an organization based on Nichiren
Buddhism), which provided a simple, direct style of
worship
featuring chanting of a few texts and formulas and a wide
range of
social activities. The more successful religious groups,
Christian
and Buddhist, offered directly accessible religious
practice with
no elaborate ritual or difficult doctrine and a supportive
social
group.
In the 1980s, the government regarded religion in
general as a
positive social force that could serve as a bulwark
against the
perceived threat of Westernization and the associated
trends of
excessive individualism and lack of discipline. It made
religious
education a compulsory subject in all secondary schools in
the
1980s. The government, although secular, was concerned,
however,
with the social consequences of religiously motivated
social action
and therefore monitored and sometimes prohibited the
activities of
religious groups. The authorities feared that religion
could
sometimes lead to social and implicitly political action
or to
contention between ethnic groups. Islamic fundamentalism,
for
example, was a very sensitive topic that was seldom
publicly
discussed. Throughout the 1980s, the authorities were
reported to
have made unpublicized arrests and expulsions of Islamic
activists.
The government restricted the activities of some Christian
groups,
such as the Jehovah's Witnesses who opposed military
service, and
in 1987 the government detained a group of Roman Catholic
social
activists, accusing them of using church organizations as
cover for
a Marxist plot. The charismatic and fundamentalist
Protestant
groups, though generally apolitical and focused on
individuals,
aroused official anxiety through their drive for more
converts.
Authorities feared that Christian proselytization directed
at the
Malays would generate resentment, tensions, and possible
communal
conflict. As early as 1974 the government had "advised"
the Bible
Society of Singapore to stop publishing materials in
Malay. In late
1988 and early 1989, a series of leaders, including Prime
Minister
Lee Kuan Yew, condemned "insensitive evangelization" as a
serious
threat to racial harmony. Official restatements of the
virtue of
and necessity for religious tolerance were mixed with
threats of
detention without trial for religious extremists.
Data as of December 1989
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