TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Indonesia among most religious nations: Pew study
Change Size
I
ndonesians are among the most religious people in the world, a recently released survey from the Pew Research Center has found.
Nearly all Indonesian respondents surveyed – 96 percent – answered that belief in God was necessary to be moral and have good values.
The report, called The Global God Divide, was released on July 20 and polled respondents in 34 countries. It placed Indonesia and the Philippines as the countries with the highest percentage of citizens – 96 percent – who equated belief in God with the possession of good morals.
Most Indonesians also consider religion, God and prayer to be important parts of their lives, at 98 percent, 91 percent and 95 percent of respondents respectively.
“Over time, the importance of religion in Indonesia has not changed, making it one of the most religiously devout publics that we surveyed,” Jacob Poushter, Pew associate director of global attitudes research, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The survey demonstrated Indonesians’ perception of the importance of self-definition along religious lines, with “religiously unaffiliated people”, such as agnostics and atheists, rarely openly voicing their beliefs in the country.
On paper, Indonesian laws guarantee freedom of religion, although in their implementation, citizens must subscribe to one of the six officially approved religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam or Protestantism.
Observers have noted that Muslim-majority Indonesia is neither an Islamic state nor an entirely secular one, with religion largely recontextualized as a sociopolitical issue through the country's democratic and nationalist principles.
Poushter said Indonesia bore similarities to other highly religious societies in emerging and developing economies, where people generally tended to be more religious than those from countries with more developed economies.
Wahid Foundation researcher Alamsyah M. Djafar suggested that the Indonesian government’s formalization of religion may have bolstered the high level of religiosity shown by the Pew survey. The government’s policies on religion include permitting certain regions to adopt sharia, such as Aceh, where it is obligatory for Muslim women to wear the hijab.
Economic inequality, the politicization of religion and wide-ranging uncertainties across various sectors could also contribute to the high religiosity of Indonesia, Alamsyah said, as religious institutions offered their congregations a sense of certainty and safety.
But he also pointed out that intolerance remained prevalent in the country, citing a 2006 decree that made it difficult for minority religions to build places of worship.
The joint ministerial decree on houses of worship requires a congregation to collect 90 signatures from its members and another 60 signatures from other residents in the community before a building permit can be issued. Many minority religions have been unable to fulfill the requirement and, as a result, have been unable to build houses of worship.
Alamsyah said that local administrations had been inconsistent in supporting minority religions that could not meet the decree's requirements.
His view echoes those of a number of activists who have long criticized the decree and its use by communities throughout the country to obstruct the construction of houses of worship for minority religions.
Experts have also criticized the 1965 Blasphemy Law, which privileged the Muslim majority over religious minorities, and regional bylaws that provide a legal basis for religious intolerance.
In addition to highlighting the need to fix the regulatory system, Alamysah said people should think critically about their religious beliefs.
“Critical thinking is shown in how people understand religion from more than one source or opinion. If they deem one [source or opinion completely] wrong and another right, then they are likely following a conservative view,” he said.
Religious Affairs Ministry spokesman Oman Fathurahman said on Monday that the Indonesian results of the Pew survey were “unsurprising”.
“Spirituality has been an inseparable part of Indonesia for hundreds of years,” he said.
Oman added that Indonesia's religiosity must be balanced with moderate, inclusive understanding that did not claim “a [particular] religious interpretation as absolute truth”, considering the diverse religious beliefs and practices of the country.
He said the ministry was strengthening and expanding its “religious moderation” programs and was including them in the ministry’s five-year development plan to guide future policies on religion.
Oman stressed that the purpose of religious moderation was to prevent acts of intolerance and conservative extremism, as well as to educate people to avoid “ignoring or degrading [other] religious values”.
“In principle, they must be fair and balanced in practicing religious teachings and not be excessive [in leaning toward] either the extreme right or left because both would be counterproductive for the very religious people of Indonesia,” he said.
