On almost every block in the United States, you see a church. Businesses are known to be closed on Sundays. A couple of federal holidays are based on Christian celebrations. Many, if not all, of your neighbors, probably have gone to church. But have you ever been to a place where, on every block, you would see a mosque, hear a call to prayer blasting from speakers five times a day, or live in a neighborhood where every person you encounter was born Muslim?
A people’s worldview is manifested in their local context. From the way people work to the things people eat, one’s worldview controls how one lives and what is considered normal. In the United States, it is normal for a church to be on the same street as a mosque because of the First Amendment to the country’s Constitution. In Indonesia, on the other hand, Islam is the norm.
When I arrived in Indonesia during the summer of 2022, I was greeted with a whiff of cigarettes and a measure of humidity—a familiar air from all the times I have visited Korea. Our trip was intended to be informative of all the major world religions. Still, there was a particular focus on Islam because there are many in Indonesia who identify as such. As the sun set in Bandung, I heard the call to prayer for the first time. Initially, I did not know how to think or feel about what I was hearing. I could not understand it because it was in Arabic (though we were in Indonesia) and was certainly unusual. We would hear the prayers during our stay in the mornings and the evenings (we were not at the hotel during the day). The moment that struck me, though, was on the last night of our stay in Jakarta before Eid al-Adha, a major Islamic holiday commemorating Ibrahim’s (or Abraham’s) obedience to Allah. The place we stayed was close enough to a mosque, amplifying the Arabic prayers. Since it was the night before Eid al-Adha, the prayers went late into the night and began again early the next morning. Before this moment, the prayers had become quotidian that I had acclimated to, but now I have started to think about how they were crying out to a god who neither hears nor answers.
In contrast to Indonesia, it is rare to hear such loud, public, and regular proclamations from a religious group in the United States. Some forms of public religious broadcasting in the U.S. would be church bells or an activist march, which occur less frequently than these Muslim prayers.
Apart from the regular prayers, I witnessed the celebration of Eid al-Adha. During this holiday, members of local mosques would slaughter livestock to commemorate Ibrahim’s obedience to Allah. The slaughtered cattle and goats were a sight I have never seen. At the local mosques, families watched or participated in dividing up the meat to give to the poor. With a mosque on every corner of this country, can you imagine how many people were celebrating this holiday with the stench of blood and meat in the air? I had not seen or heard of anything like this in the U.S. Rather, we would see carved pumpkins, Christmas lights and decorations outside people’s homes, Hallmark’s countdown to Christmas, or Easter egg hunts. Before visiting Indonesia, I had never been to a country where the predominant religion was not Christianity.
Not only were the Indonesians’ daily practices different from that of the Americans, there were various types of Muslims. Some were more devout, some were religious or practicing Islam, while others were nominal. A previous team had traveled to Sumatra, one of the western islands, two weeks before my team arrived. There, they had the opportunity to hear testimonies of persecuted believers and to see where more devout Muslims placed sharia (Islamic law) above government law. Three of the ladies I spoke to while riding on the train were practicing Muslims, which meant that they wore their hijabs and were able to talk about some of the major Islamic holidays. A couple of Muslim ladies I encountered towards the end of our trip did not wear any sort of coverings, though they claimed Islam. Nominal Muslims, such as these ladies, seem to desire religious plurality and peace—a desire resembling that of Western thought seem to desire religious plurality and peace, which is like Western thought. Just because Islam is the major religion in a country does not necessarily mean that everyone claiming it holds the same beliefs and values. Traveling in Indonesia and observing Islam’s effects on the country and its people has made me more aware of my context here in the States. Though the majority view affects how a country operates, it is important not to paint everyone in such broad strokes. Instead, we should seek to know each individual because every person is different and may not hold the views we may assume. Just as we have people who identify as Christians here and yet do not believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, some people identify as Muslim and yet do not know what Islam claims or the implications of those claims.
This is crucial to consider for those who desire to do mission work. Those who grew up in the States have lived in a society formed by biblical values. However, should you live in a foreign country where Christianity is not the majority, you may experience a different level of affliction and witness injustices you may have never imagined seeing more or other kinds of injustice. The Bible tells us of how the wicked (the unbelieving) seek to destroy and how they are deceived by the enemy (Proverbs 12:20-21; 19:28; 21:10).
Let us pray for the deceived, asking the Lord to have mercy on them and to save them. Let us pray for our brothers and sisters who serve in these contexts, asking the Lord to be their source of peace and comfort amidst the world’s corruption. Finally, let us pray that the Lord would display his glory through the local churches so that the lost would be found. Amen!