6 - Ethnic Chinese Religions: Some Recent Developments

Summary

When looking into recent developments of ethnic Chinese religions in Indonesia, we should bear in mind the domestic and external factors which have contributed to the religious scene of the local Chinese community.

It is well acknowledged that during three decades of the Soeharto regime, the public discourse in this country was dominated by Communist-phobia and China-phobia. In order to survive and thrive, all Indonesians had to state clearly their affiliation to a certain state sanctioned religious group; and this is especially necessary for the ethnic Chinese, who are vulnerable to accusations of being pro-Communist or Communists. The assumption here is that Communists are atheists. To be accepted as non-communist, Chinese Indonesians are expected to have a religion. Understandably ethnic Chinese religious groups such as Buddhist and Christian groups in Indonesia flourished.

The other domestic factor that should not be overlooked is that, as a consequence of the delegitimization of cultural practices associated with “Chineseness”, some religious practices (for example, those relating to the Confucian religion) were viewed as a pretext for Chinese cultural practices and were hence discouraged. Nevertheless, the Soeharto regime did not ban the Confucian religion as it claimed that Indonesia had religious freedom. But the New Order derecognized Confucianism, thus making its development difficult. This encouraged the rise of certain religions which are perceived to be “less Chinese”. Buddhism was considered to be such a religion at that time. But in reality, Buddhism has been quite divided and there is Sinicized Buddhism, which is strongly embedded in Chinese culture. Through Buddhism, Chinese cultural/ethnic identity can be preserved.

The flourishing of Buddhism and Christianity among ethnic Chinese Indonesians has also been encouraged by international (but mostly dominated by Chinese-speaking groups) Buddhist and Christian organizations. These international organizations provided their co religious groups in Indonesia with both material and spiritual support, making it possible for the Chinese Indonesians to retain their ethnic/cultural identities. The fall of Soeharto and the advent of the era of globalization gave further impetus to the development of Chinese religious groups. This chapter attempts to examine recent developments of ethnic Chinese religions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Protestant Christianity. Islam and Catholicism will not be discussed here due to lack of data and time to do further research.