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Friday, April 16, 2010

Following Christ in Indonesia

Time magazine on Christianity’s surge in Indonesia:

A religious revolution is transforming Indonesia. Part of the spiritual blossoming entails Muslims embracing a more conservative form of faith, mirroring global trends that have meant a proliferation of headscarves and beards in modern Islamic capitals. More surprising, though, is the boom in Christianity — officially Indonesia's second largest faith and a growing force throughout Asia. Indeed, the number of Asian Christian faithful exploded to 351 million adherents in 2005, up from 101 million in 1970

Exact figures are hard to gather in a country where conversions from Islam to Christianity face a stigma and likely lead to an underreporting of Christian believers.

Time suggests some reasons for the explosion of evangelical Christianity, and some tensions among the Muslim-majority land that have resulted.

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