No Freedom to Believer of Christ in Indonesia

I am a member of a church which is legally admitted as an official organization by the government of Indonesia through the Acts published by the Minister of Religious Affairs. For the sake of discretion, I choose not to mention the name of the organization.

The following is a true story;

The church where I belong had quite a huge number of assembly; some including families who came from a far region in the outer state. For this very reason, the organization where the church affiliated with had a plan to open a branch in the location near those people. The intention was so that these people didn’t have to travel such distance to their place of worship.

Concretely and environmentally, the permission to build this new church was being processed to be legalized by the parties being involved. During this process the person in charge of the organization was having troubles acquiring the permit from the local dweller without being given a clear reasoning whatsoever. A year had gone by since the permit was being requested and through a tough and difficult struggle, the permit was finally being released officially. And so the church was finally ready to be built.

After a year, it was finally ready to be used and the next step was to make it as an official worshiping place. Out of the blue and without any warning whatsoever, the local officials (the village chief, the head of the subdistrict and also the local seniors of the village) came to visit the organization board a day before the church was being made official. They came by to say that on behalf of the village, they strongly disagreed with the building of the church being in their region with the excuse that it would attract noise and crowds.

After going through many heated arguments, the organization board finally decided to delay the officialise of the church because even though the permit had been signed by those village chiefs, the fear that the local people had inflicted by saying they would close down the church as their final ultimatum had made the organization manager to best wait until things were clear.

Strange enough, a few months after the incident, a nightclub was built right next to the unused building of the new church. And until this article is being posted, the new church was never allowed to be officially open to the public.

According to the Indonesian Constitutions, it is mentioned that the state guarantees and protects the freedom of its people to religious freedom, but the true fact is far from it.

Christianity is continuously receiving difficulties to have its own places of worships in this Moslem-majority country of Indonesia. Furthermore, the state is powerless to look after its people, especially those who are Christians.

The fact is, the freedom to religious choice in Indonesia does not exist.