The Phenomenon of Church Closing in Indonesia: Violence, Resistance, and Resilience in the “GKI Yasmin” Case

The fall of President Suharto from his long authoritarian regime in 1998 marks the beginning of the Reformation period that ushers in the “conservative turn” among Indonesian Muslims in politics, social, economic, and cultural realms. One of the most visible manifestations of it is the significant increase in church closing cases. Church closings refer to various phenomena, including various activities, from individual objections and demonstrations to physical attacks. This paper focuses on one case that has gained national and international attention in Bogor, West Java: The “Gereja Kristen Indonesia (Indonesian Christian Church) Yasmin” case. In April 2023, after more than a decade of struggle, the church was opened at a different location. The paper aims to analyze strategies employed by the congregation, ranging from public rituals as a form of resistance to cooperation with Muslim stakeholders and local government apparatus. The goal is to obtain a more nuanced picture of Christian-Muslim relations after the conservative turn in contemporary Indonesia. Far from passive and submissive, Indonesian Christians cultivate different modes of subsisting that allow them to negotiate their identity and roles in the larger society.