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Ministering to the Middle: Christian Megachurches and Minoritarian Politics in Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2022

Daniel P. S. Goh Open the ORCID record for Daniel P. S. Goh [Opens in a new window]  and
Terence Chong
Daniel P. S. Goh*
Affiliation:
1Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, AS1 #03-06, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 117570
Terence Chong
Affiliation:
2Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore
*
Corresponding author: Daniel P. S. Goh, E-mail: socgohd@nus.edu.sg
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Abstract

Christian megachurches have been growing in members, organization, and financial resources in the large cities of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines and in Singapore. However, they remain as religious minorities facing an asymmetrical balance of political power due to the Islamization of politics, strong state secularism, or the close entanglement of the political elites with majority Catholicism. We propose a framework of minoritarian politics to understand the actions adopted by the churches to defend and advance their interests. While the scholarship on religion and politics tends to focus on churches' direct engagement with political elites and the mobilization of grassroots movements, we argue that the megachurches prefer to minister to the middle by forging outreach networks to accumulate social capital with a broad range of intermediaries. This is not just due to theological conservatism, but also because ministering to the middle has been the effective strategy given the political circumstances.

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Article
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Politics and Religion , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 722 - 741
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

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