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Review Article
The Growth of the Pentecostal-Charismatic
Churches in Indonesia
Kees de Jong
Duta Wacana Christian University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
keesentuti@hotmail.com
Abstract
In Indonesia, a country with a Muslim majority, Pentecostal / Charismatic churches are
growing in urban contexts. Young people especially are attracted by the living worship
of the Pentecostal / Charismatic churches, organised very professionally with an inte-
gration of multimedia, music, decor and lighting. The pop and rock music is most
attractive, in combination with the sermons of the pastors which are simple and near to
the daily life experiences, showing how Jesus is near to everybody, giving comfort, for-
giveness, healing, direction and even material prosperity and happiness. Young people,
coming from the countryside to big cities appreciate Pentecostal / Charismatic churches
as a sign of modernity. As regards their relations with Islam, some Muslims do not like
the worship of Pentecostal / Charismatic churches in big shopping malls. Other Muslims
* Kees de Jong (b. 1951) studied pastoral theology and missiology in Heerlen and Nijmegen.
Since 1992 he has been teaching missiology, theology of religions and intercultural theol-
ogy in Indonesia, rst in Bandung and subsequently as a missionary co-worker, supported
and sent by the Protestant Church in the Netherlands and Mensen met een Missie, at Abdiel
Seminary in Ungaran and at the Theological Faculty of the Duta Wacana Christian University
in Yogyakarta.
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benet from the social activities of Pentecostal / Charismatic churches, on condition
that they are not forced to become Christians. Most of the relations are indiferent, as
long as they do not disturb each other.
Keywords
Attractiveness of Pentecostal / Charismatic worship – spirituality – prosperity
theology – urban contexts – Pentecostal / Charismatic Christian-Muslim relations in
Indonesia
Christine E. Gudorf, Zainal Abidin Bagir and Marthen Tahun (eds.)
Aspirations for Modernity and Prosperity: Symbols and Sources Behind Pentecostal /
Charismatic Growth in Indonesia, A Forum for Theology in the World, volume 1,
No. 1/2014, Adelaide, Australia: Press, x + 231 p., 978-1-925232-05-9,
price $ 23.00.
In the preface of this book the background of this publication is explained
as follows. Indonesia is a majority Muslim country. Within Indonesian
Christianity Pentecostal-Charismatic churches and movements are growing.
This was the reason for the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies
in Yogyakarta (Yogya) participating in a larger global research project on the
special topic the Pentecostal / Charismatic movement(s) in Indonesia. The
research was done in several cities: Jakarta, Surabaya, Yogyakarta — includ-
ing Surakarta (Solo) and Semarang — in Java, Medan in North Sumatera and
Manado in North Sulawesi. The eld work was done by an inter-religious group
of ve eld researchers: two Protestants, a Catholic and two Muslims, includ-
ing a woman, who wore a head scarf.
The preface and an introductory chapter are followed by seven chap-
ters, which together give a very remarkable insight in the developments of
the Pentecostal / Charismatic movements in the Indonesian urban context,
seen from diferent viewpoints. These viewpoints are: the attractiveness of
Pentecostal / Charismatic worship, the spiritual experience, the relation
of social classes and the prosperity theology, gender, organization of Pentecostal
Zainal Abidin Bagir, ‘Preface: Researching Pentecostalism in a Majority Muslim Country’, in:
Christine E. Gudorf, Zainal Abidin Bagir and Marthen Tahun (eds.), Aspirations for Modernity
and Prosperity: Symbols and Sources Behind Pentecostal / Charismatic Growth in Indonesia,
A Forum for Theology in the World, volume 1, No. 1/2014, Adelaide, Australia: Press, vii-x.
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and Charismatic synods, relations with Non-Pentecostal Christians and the
last chapter about Pentecostal-Muslim relations.
I will now give a short description of four striking chapters.
1. The Attractiveness of Pentecostal / Charismatic Worship. (p. 15-38)
One of the most determining factors for the growth of Pentecostal / Charismatic
churches is the professionalisation of all areas of church ministry, with the
worship as the most important. Worship is organised very eciently to pro-
duce an integration of multimedia, music, decor and lighting that forms an
atmosphere in which people experience and encounter the Divine. A ‘resur-
rection’ within contemporary Christian music was perhaps the primary driver
for the speed of Pentecostal growth, especially among urban youth. Pop and
rock music carry the theme of freedom, which brings fresh air for renewing
worship to replace repeating traditional, severe and outdated hymns. The
lyrics, laden with romantic themes, make the songs memorable and support
the emotional atmosphere within the congregation. Jesus is considered to be
the lover and the bridegroom of the people, who promises comfort and helps
people facing everyday problems that they feel unable to face alone. In most
Pentecostal / Charismatic churches about 65% of the worship hour is lled
with songs, most of the time presented by professional musicians and singers.
This lively music is for most respondents the most compelling reason to join
these churches. One of the trendsetters in Indonesia is a band with the name
True Worshippers (), founded in 1996. This band is known for its Christian
spirituals, widespread in Indonesia. Most of the individual members are mem-
ber of the Jakarta Praise Community Church ( ). They inspire other bands.
Up to 2011, has already produced 32 albums. Because many young urban
people also make some use of English language in daily life and because the
inuence of the Global Pentecostal Network, 50% of the songs of are in
English.
The professionality of the pastors, church leaders, is also a factor that can-
not be neglected. Most of them came from the secular world and were most
often professionals in various elds of work before they were spiritually called.
Because of the congregational system of most Pentecostal / Charismatic
churches, each local church is responsible for their own activities. Principles of
corporate management are put into efect in the life of the church by appoint-
ing technocrats and technologists to assist the pastor in running the ministry
To show the results of the research done as authentic as possible we made a summary of
the 4 selected chapters (with reference to the page numbers) following as far as possible the
original texts.
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of the church. Methods of modern organisational management and an organ-
isational climate that is open to change and adjustment, have all contributed
to making professionalism central to the identity of Pentecostal / Charismatic
churches in Indonesia today.
2. The Spiritual Experience. (p. 39-51)
The Pentecostal / Charismatic churches invite their congregations to see their
daily spiritual experience as a response to God’s will. The characteristics pecu-
liar to their spirituality are intuition, direct communication and literal inter-
pretation. Their spirituality also emphasis supranatural roles such as casting
out demons, encounters with divinity through dreams, speaking in tongues,
prophecies, wisdom. Their spiritual experience and reection on their spiri-
tuality are not only expressed inside the church, but also outside, manifested
through the church’s response toward social issues, both immediate and long
term issues. The sermon is also important in attracting new church members.
A good sermon is one that is simple and talks about daily life concerns as expe-
rienced by the church members or pastors. There are several kinds of popular
pastors, some stress miracle healing; others emphasise praise and worship; or
give testimonies. They are invited to preach in regular Sunday services or spe-
cial revival services in other churches.
In Pentecostal / Charismatic churches Baptism is by immersion and can be
done in rivers, swimming pools, or in a pool special constructed for a revival
service. Revival services are aimed at those who receive a calling of repentance
during the service and will be baptised.
There are all kinds of strategies to maintain church members. To ensure
that the worship is attractive for special ethnic groups, services are sometimes
provided in two languages, usually Indonesian and Mandarin Chinese or
Indonesian and English based on the need of the congregation, the church
resources and the ethnic background of the majority of the members.
Sometimes churches also adopt cultural aspects and local languages in their
services. Normally Pentecostal / Charismatic members in cities are very
mobile, switching from one church to another. To maintain their members,
each church tries to present the most attractive façade including the friend-
liness of ushers at Sunday services, the style of praise and worship, the ser-
mon and the cell group. Revival services are meant to refresh the members’
spirits and inviting in newcomers.
One of the characteristics of Pentecostal / Charismatic worship is speaking
in tongues, although not all churches use it during services. Because Pentecost
is one of the most important days in church tradition, some churches organise
ten days of prayer before Pentecost, hoping God will send forth the Holy Spirit
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more forcefully. Tongues are only one of the signs that a person has received
the Holy Spirit. Other gifts include interpreting the tongues, miracle healing,
prophecy, preaching, evangelisation and so on.
3. The Relationship between Social Classes and Prosperity Theology. (p. 53-68)
In the urban context there are mega-churches. They have some similarities.
Congregational management and development usually rests on the cell sys-
tem. The cell groups consist of several families within a particular area. Their
meetings are usually a prayer meeting or fellowship outside the church wor-
ship schedule, held in members’ homes. They are sharing experiences and tes-
timonies of God’s love, and praying together. Each group has a spiritual adviser.
In these cell groups, everyone takes some responsibility for leadership. Often
most of the families are young families with small children.
In each mega-church, there are diferent types of worship devoted to spe-
cic groups or classes in the congregation. For example there are services and
activities for professionals and entrepreneurs (businessmen). Pentecostal /
Charismatic churches in big cities in Indonesia appear in prominent public
spaces such as exclusive shopping centres or elite hotels. But there are also
many small churches located in the slums, in middle class housing or in less
strategic areas.
Most of the Pentecostal / Charismatic members have a higher education, far
above the general level of education in Indonesia. There may be a link with the
prosperity theology. Spiritual asset development is often presented as a path
to success. There is a suggestion of a correlation between intimacy with God
and material success. This is reinforced with Bible verses that through God
they have the power to achieve what they want. According to Tanuseputra,
founder and church leader of the Bethany Church, success is having no prob-
lems, no anxiety. While it includes having the things one desires, it is rather
more focused on having a happy life — one that includes spiritual happiness.
Seen from the viewpoint of ancestry Chinese-Indonesian people have a
special identity. There is a belief in Chinese culture, for example, that a con-
tribution to a house of worship (temple, monastery) will bring rewards much
larger than the donation. The sow-reap theology in Pentecostal / Charismatic
churches — one who sows will reap many rewards — parallels this customary
belief in Chinese culture. Chinese-Indonesians emphasise material well-being
more than any other kind. For the Chinese success is being rich. While church
movements often considered the rich to be sinful and going to hell, a pastor
preached that the rich man also goes to heaven.
Mega-churches also attract many young people for instance by revival
worships, Kebaktian Kebangunan Rohani ( — Spiritual Revival Services).
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Sometimes several popular recording artists are brought in within the to
perform songs and give testimonies about their successful lives, and the mir-
acles they have experienced in their careers and spiritual lives. Many young
people coming from the countryside like to become part of the movement of
modernity with a current lifestyle and are actively involved in mega-churches.
The number of youth (20-40 years) who actively assist in services in Pentecostal /
Charismatic churches reaches nearly fty percent.
4. Pentecostal-Muslim Relations in Indonesia. (p. 171-194)
Most of the Muslim respondents in the survey said that they don’t know the
diferences between Pentecostal / Charismatic churches and other churches.
Only a part could identify Pentecostal / Charismatic churches as ones with
more emotionally intense worship and using loud music and songs, louder
sounds coming from the church compared with other churches.
For Christian Muslim relations it is important to look at the history of
Indonesia. In 1945 there was a political agreement to make Indonesia a coun-
try based not on a specic religion, although the majority of Indonesians
was overwhelmingly Muslim. After 1965 the Communist Party in Indonesia,
at that moment the third largest in the world, was forbidden and religious
groups were mobilized to ght those being suspected of being communists.
Successful Christian proselytization of (suspected) communists planted seeds
of suspicion among Muslims about ‘Christianisation’. There are also still some
Christian groups which carry out aggressive proselytization by buying con-
verts through rice (‘rice-Christians’) or other means. On the same time there
some shari’a-aspiring groups keeping an exclusivist ‘Islamization’ agenda alive.
‘Christianisation’ and ‘Islamisation’ had become symbolic tools in the politi-
cal competition. The last important turning point in the history of Indonesia
is the 1998 Reformasi. Some Muslim groups, both new groups and old groups
which were suppressed during the Soeharto era, consistently struggled for
‘Islamisation’ by attempting to inuence policy making with shari’a. What
emerged were attempts to enact shari’a-inspired local bylaws, thanks to the
on-going process of decentralization. Sometimes there are also conicts in
Muslim-Christian relations due to the emergence of aggressive groups which
in some cases use violence, such as the Front Pembela Islam (Islam Defenders’
Front). Groups that have been involved in attacks on churches were also in
conict with the majority moderate Muslim groups as well as non-mainstream
Islamic groups such as the Ahmadiyah. Concrete issues which can be used as
a measure of the relationship between Muslims and Christians are the contro-
versy about the building of churches, which is closely related to suspicion of
proselytization, and Muslim aspirations to insert shari’a into public policies.
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Some Muslim groups regard any declared need for more churches as an indi-
cation of successful proselytization that has converted Muslims. The survey
reveals however that only 3.9% of new Pentecostal / Charismatic church
members are Muslims. Pentecostal aggressiveness may give the impression of
‘Christian aggressiveness’. Some Muslims also consider Pentecostal services in
the malls as a sign of aggressiveness while other Muslim respondents are sim-
ply indiferent.
But there are also meeting points between Muslims and Pentecostal /
Charismatic Churches, for instance the interacting through the social services
of Pentecostal / Charismatic Churches, such as education and health services,
as long as there is no intention to convert Muslims. Another meeting point
is moral anity such as honesty, restriction of alcoholic beverages or even
smoking.
For future relations the main principle for leaders is ‘not disturbing each
other’. This is a kind of tolerance which borders on indiference but has given
birth to a situation of relative harmony in many places. But tolerance without
an attempt to know each other better, while suspicion or fear is kept at bay,
could quickly degenerate into tension. The younger generation of Pentecostals
seem to adopt a diferent attitude, which is reason for hope. For they advo-
cate a less fundamentalist and more progressive interpretation of the Bible
and are more open to civic and interfaith engagement, which goes beyond the
older generation’s pragmatism that only seeks protection of themselves as a
minority.
Conclusion
This publication gives a good and interesting picture of several reasons for the
spectacular growth of Pentecostal / Charismatic movements in urban contexts
in pluralistic Indonesia and also a picture of relations between Pentecostal /
Charismatic churches with other Christians and other religions, especially
with the Islam.
