Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-13T21:04:50.851Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ministering to the Middle: Christian Megachurches and Minoritarian Politics in Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2022

Daniel P. S. Goh*
Affiliation:
1Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, AS1 #03-06, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 117570
Terence Chong
Affiliation:
2Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore
*
Corresponding author: Daniel P. S. Goh, E-mail: socgohd@nus.edu.sg

Abstract

Christian megachurches have been growing in members, organization, and financial resources in the large cities of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines and in Singapore. However, they remain as religious minorities facing an asymmetrical balance of political power due to the Islamization of politics, strong state secularism, or the close entanglement of the political elites with majority Catholicism. We propose a framework of minoritarian politics to understand the actions adopted by the churches to defend and advance their interests. While the scholarship on religion and politics tends to focus on churches' direct engagement with political elites and the mobilization of grassroots movements, we argue that the megachurches prefer to minister to the middle by forging outreach networks to accumulate social capital with a broad range of intermediaries. This is not just due to theological conservatism, but also because ministering to the middle has been the effective strategy given the political circumstances.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adeney, M (2009) Kingdom Without Borders: The Untold Story of Global Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.Google Scholar
Arifianto, AR (2017) Practicing What it Preaches? Understanding the Contradictions Between Pluralist Theology and Religious Intolerance Within Indonesia's Nahdlatul Ulama. Al-Jami'ah: Journal of Islamic Studies 55(2), 241264.Google Scholar
Asad, T (2003) Formations of the Secular. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Banaji, S (2018) Vigilante Publics: Orientalism, Modernity and Hindutva Fascism in India. Javnost – The Public 25(4), 333350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Budijanto, B (2009) Evangelicals and Politics in Indonesia: The Case of Surakarta. In Lumsdaine, DH (ed.), Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 155184.Google Scholar
Casanova, J (1994) Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chong, T (ed.) (2011) The AWARE Sage: Civil Society and Public Morality in Singapore. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Cornelio, J and Marañon, I (2019) A “Righteous Intervention”: Megachurch Christianity and Duterte's War on Drugs in the Philippines. International Journal of Asian Christianity 2(2), 211230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, J (1989) A World Survey of Religion and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, J (2013) An Introduction to Religion and Politics: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, A (2001) Religion and Comparative Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 4, 117138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goh, DPS (2018) Grace, Megachurches, and the Christian Prince in Singapore. In Chong, T (ed.), Pentecostal Megachurches in Southeast Asia: Negotiating Class, Consumption and the Nation. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, pp. 181206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grzymala-Busse, A (2012) Why Comparative Politics Should Take Religion (More) Seriously. Annual Review of Political Science 15, 421442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hefner, RW (2017) Christians, Conflict, and Citizenship in Muslim-Majority Indonesia. The Review of Faith & International Affairs 15(1), 91101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herbert, D (2009) Religion and Civil Society. In Haynes, J (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics. London: Routledge, pp. 231245.Google Scholar
Hoon, C-Y (2013) Between Evangelism and Multiculturalism: The Dynamics of Protestant Christianity in Indonesia. Social Compass 60(4), 457470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoon, C-Y (2016) Religious Aspirations Among Urban Christians in Contemporary Indonesia. International Sociology 31(4), 413431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoon, C-Y (2018) Pentecostal Megachurches in Jakarta: Class, Local, and Global Dynamics. In Chong T (ed.), Pentecostal Megachurches in Southeast Asia : Negotiating Class, Consumption and the Nation. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, pp. 2146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, TM and Zurlo, GA (eds) (2019) World Religion Database. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Kang, J (2016) House Church Christianity in China: From Rural Preachers to City Pastors. Cham: Springer International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lim, D (1989) Church and State in the Philippines, 1900–1988. Transformation 6(3), 2732.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lim, DS (2009) Consolidating Democracy: Filipino Evangelicals Between People Power Events, 1986–2001. In Lumsdaine, DH (ed.), Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 235284.Google Scholar
Liow, JC (2016) Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LoveSingapore (2006) “Curious About Us.” LoveSingapore. Available at http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg/. Last accessed 2 December 2020.Google Scholar
Menchik, J (2016) Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance Without Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, P and Inglehart, R (2011) Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, 2nd Edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parliament of Singapore (2019) Official Reports –Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) 1 April 2019.Google Scholar
Rey, T (2004) Marketing the Goods of Salvation: Bourdieu on Religion. Religion 34(4), 331343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salvatore, A (2007) The Public Sphere: Liberal Modernity, Catholicism, Islam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanneh, L (1991) Religion and Politics: Third World Perspective on a Comparative Religious Theme. Daedalus 120(3), 203218.Google Scholar
Stark, R and Finke, R (2000) Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Steven, M (2009) Religious Lobbies in the European Union: From Dominant Church to Faith-Based Organisation? Religion, State & Society 37(1–2), 181191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swartz, D (1996) Bridging the Study of Culture and Religion: Pierre Bourdieu's Political Economy of Symbolic Power. Sociology of Religion 57(1), 7185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyson, A (2021) Blasphemy and Judicial Legitimacy in Indonesia. Politics and Religion 14(1), 182205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Klinken, G (2003) Minorities, Modernity, and the Emerging Nation: Christians in Indonesia. A Biographical Approach. Leiden: KITLV Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verter, B (2003) Spiritual Capital: Theorizing Religion with Bourdieu Against Bourdieu. Sociological Theory 21(2), 150174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, CM (2000) Confessions of an Interest Group: The Catholic Church and Political Parties in Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wuthnow, R (1991) Understanding Religion and Politics. Daedalus 120(3), 120.Google Scholar