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Published: Tuesday 02 March 2010

Praying for the Persecuted Church in Lent - Indonesia

Project(s): 22-753, 22-766, 22-808

Country: Indonesia

The Indonesian state is founded on the doctrine of Pancasila, which includes belief in one God and a commitment to national unity. Every citizen is obliged to follow one of five faiths. For many decades this ideology helped to promote stability, peace and equality between different religious communities. Christians and Muslims lived together in remarkable harmony.

This Indonesian pastor and his wife were forced to leave the church they are planting because of hostility from local Muslims

But in the 1980s the strength of the Muslim majority began to be exploited by Islamists with the long-term goal of bringing the whole country under the rule of sharia law. The economic crisis of the late 1990s then precipitated serious violence by Islamists against Christians, including in some areas a full-scale campaign of ethnic cleansing. In Central Sulawesi and the Maluku Islands hundreds of churches and thousands of homes were destroyed; according to some estimates 30,000 Christians were killed and about half a million driven out.

Other areas of Indonesia are now facing anti-Christian pressure. Following a prolonged Islamist insurgency the territory of Aceh has already achieved a measure of autonomy from the national government, and in 2003 its government began to introduce elements of sharia. Similarly, in West Sumatra aspects of sharia are gradually being imposed, affecting especially school children, women and couples who want to marry; Christians have to conform to these laws as well as Muslims. In Papua the army has burned a number of Christian villages and killed their inhabitants, and in a policy called “transmigration” Javanese Muslims have been encouraged to settle in the western part of the province, which is now a Muslim-majority area and is to be granted special autonomy. Many Muslims are also settling in the Malukus, where Christians expect there will soon be a Muslim majority.

According to official figures, Christians are now over 10% of the Indonesian population of nearly 240 million, though the churches believe that the real proportion may be 15% or even 20%. The country has the world’s largest Muslim population.

Barnabas Aid projects in Indonesia include:

Assistance for Horale village (Ref. 22-753)
Support for an Indonesian theological seminary (Ref. 22-766)
Church planting in (Ref. 22-808)

Please Pray:

In October 2009 police in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, evicted the students of a Christian theological college from their temporary accommodation. They had been holding their lessons there since being forcibly removed from their campus by a Muslim mob in July 2008.

Pray for the students and other Indonesian Christians facing harassment and discrimination for their faith.
Pray that the authorities will safeguard their freedoms and resist the Islamists’ attempts to eradicate Christianity from the country.
Pray that the Lord will protect His people from further violent attacks and enforced displacement from their homes, churches and institutions.

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