Managing Religious Tension

Abstract

As discussed in the previous chapter, the New Order’s interference in religious affairs, although driven by a desire to maintain social harmony, paradoxically ended up exacerbating tensions between and within religious communities. Much of this tension revolved around two interconnected issues: missionary activities, particularly to convert people from one established religion to another, and the building of new places of worship. Relations between Muslims and Christians on these two issues were especially strained. A contributing factor to this was the government policy requiring all Indonesian citizens to embrace one of the (five) recognized religions as part of the strategy to combat “atheistic” communism. For the regime, it was obligatory to believe in one God (bertuhan) and to follow one established religion (beragama), and those without religious beliefs ran the risk of imprisonment or even being killed.