Catholics in Indonesia during the Japanese occupation, 1942-1945

By KAREL A. STEENBRINK

Professor Emeritus of Intercultural Theology at Utrecht University

 

The Japanese administration of Indonesia took religion as an important issue in order to win the sympathy of the population. It gave ample facilities to Islamic institutions.

 

Christianity was seen as the religion introduced and most often directed by the Dutch oppressor. Moreover, Islam was the religion of more than 80% of the population, while in 1942 Christianity reached only about 2.5%.

 

Therefore the Japanese attitude was ambiguous towards Christianity. Dutch missionary personnel were in most cases interned, and initially buildings and other properties of the churches were confiscated, the schools closed or taken over by the new authority.

 

The same was the case with the medical care organised by the Christian churches. In the second year of the Japanese rule there was a milder policy: the Japanese sent several Protestant ministers, some Catholics priests and even two Japanese Catholic bishops to Indonesia (especially to Minahasa and Flores).

 

There were many local variations in this pattern. On the whole it has to be acknowledged that Christianity not only survived the Pacific War but indigenous leadership was given an opportunity to grow because of the absence of foreign missionaries.

 

In education and medical care the Christian churches never regained the broad facilities and close cooperation with the state they had enjoyed before 1942.

 

For the whole of Indonesia the Japanese period was seldom seen as a move towards independence and greater freedom. With the exception of Batakland, the indigenous Indonesians only reluctantly took over the positions of the foreign missionaries. The churches lost much of their solid foundation in society: their schools and sometimes also the hospitals.

 

In 1943 the administration required that during church service the leader should read a message about the Greater Asia War, its causes and aims. 

 

Emperor worship also entered the church buildings, because in many places a Japanese flag was put inside the church building, on the wall facing Tokyo. Before the beginning of the service the assembled congregation were to face that wall and bow.

 

Although it was officially stated that this was an act of respect and not of veneration or adoration, the Christian community had an uneasy feeling about it. Some people wanted to evade this ritual and decided not to go to church anymore.

 

Another reason for a fall in church attendance was the fact that many people had no decent clothes anymore. In regions like the Moluccas, festive black clothes were preserved for going to church on Sundays.

 

Children could go to school naked, as happened in Sangir (the archipelago north of Sulawesi) towards the end of the war, but their parents did not wish them to participate in the church service in such a condition.