The Passion of Easter
This coming weekend expect church pews to be packed.
Congregations will spill into carparks, sometimes even the
street. Laggards will have to make do with closed circuit telecasts,
bottom-pinching metal chairs and maybe a slither of shade under blue plastic
For many Westerners, especially from Australasia, Easter in
Indonesia is an extraordinary experience.
We know the population is overwhelmingly Islamic so are astonished to
find the principal event in the Christian calendar treated with respect and celebrated
with passion almost everywhere.
It’s not like that Down Under.
Population differences aren’t the only factor. Religion is
on the way out according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In 1911 only one person in every 250 put ‘no
religion’ on their census forms; now the ratio is one in five. The non-religious
tend to be under 30 and better educated.
More than eight per cent even refused to answer the question
about religion, as they’re entitled to do though all other questions are
compulsory. That’s because the State is legally prohibited from getting
involved in religion, although Parliaments still start with prayers. No Ministry of Religious Affairs, no ID cards
stamped with a faith approved by politicians.
It’s the same next door in New Zealand, a country settled in
the 19th century by the fervent faithful from the United Kingdom.
The mainly Protestant migrants held beach services on arrival before seeking
food and shelter – then set about building churches.
Last year’s census shows that less than half the NZ population
claims to be Christian, while 40 per cent say they don’t follow any faith. Catholics
have now overtaken Protestants for the first time.
This makes the South Pacific nation one of the most secular
countries in the world – but all this discarding of religion doesn’t seem to
correlate to wrongdoing: NZ is the least
corrupt nation in the world. (Indonesia ranks 114 on the international
corruption perception index.)
It doesn’t need spreadsheets of statistics to prove the
social shifts. Just a peep inside most churches on a Sunday (don’t linger lest
you get kidnapped by an eager pastor) shows a flock of few, mainly elderly women.
Multiple services have shrunk to just one, and many parishes have to share
ministers.
In Indonesia churches are being built. In the country next door they’re being
closed.
The upside is that poor attendances and limited funds have encouraged
ecumenism. Smaller towns often share a worship center – as the Catholics enter
the Presbyterians depart.
Bucking this trend are the charismatic evangelical
denominations that attract young people with rock music, and churches catering
for Maori and Pacific Islanders. Other
faiths are faring better; there are now more Buddhists than Baptists in both
countries.
Islam is also rising, mainly through immigration. Numbers
are small – Australia has about half a million Muslims and NZ 50,000. The faith isn’t monocultural as in Indonesia because
adherents come from multiple traditions, liberal Europeans through to
conservative Arabs.
As in Indonesia, some are only nominally religious, agreeing
to worship occasionally to satisfy their families.
Living in the Southern Hemisphere may also be a factor in
the decline because so many references are irrelevant. Easter pre-dates Christianity, a festival to herald
spring as snows melt, soils defrost and dormant seeds sprout. But in Australasia it’s autumn and a time of
death and decay, a hunkering down – not an opening out.
Eostre was a pagan German goddess, usually portrayed as a virginal
nymph frolicking in a cornucopia. An
appropriate symbol for the carnival of commerce that Easter has become with
eggs and chocolate rabbits (representing fertility) hopping onto shop shelves
soon after the Christmas baubles are packed away, and nary a sight of a
crucifix.
In southern Australia Easter offers the last chance to get
away before winter hits and head for the coast with rod and line. Even on Good
Friday the fish keep biting.
Easter Monday isn’t a religious day but it’s still a
holiday. The kids are on their two-week
term break, and the weather is usually mild enough for camping. At this time
the Great Northern Highway leading out of Perth is like the Puncak Pass on a
long weekend.
Yet here in the sweltering archipelago straddling the
Equator millions will don their best clothes and head for church where they
will freely and joyously worship, even if that means enduring prolix sermons
and hard pews.
There are worrying pockets of intolerance and rejections of
plurality in Indonesia, but what nation doesn’t have its bigots? You seldom
hear of Australia’s Abu Bakar Bashirs because they’re usually ignored by the
mainstream media or treated with derision, often by their own congregations.
The standout reality is that so many Indonesians will openly
and abundantly celebrate their Christianity in a sea of Islam during a national
holiday enjoyed by all. This has to be a fact worthy of national pride and
international applause.
(First published in The Jakarta Post, 17 April 2014)
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