Christian identities in Singapore: religion, race and culture between state controls and transnational flows

Abstract

Christianity in Singapore is caught between the horns of a dilemma: on the one hand it is compelled (like all other religions practised in Singapore) to conform to the state's controls (most obviously in the form of the ‘Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act’, but also implicitly or explicitly spelt out in various policies on religious space and practices, multiculturalism, and even matters of financial governance and accountability). On the other hand, Christianity (unlike religions with a traditional racial association such as Islam with the Malays, and Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese practices with the Chinese) is also seen as a religion associated with ‘outside’ or ‘Western’ cultural influences, one which is obliged to grow its community of adherents at the expense of one of the other race-based religions. This positioning obliges Christianity in Singapore to constantly rationalize and adapt its processes on two fronts, simultaneously to locate itself within the nation as a rooted aspect of the national community, and also to capitalize on its global networks and its affinities to capitalist modernity. In this sense, it constantly has to undergo a version of what Aihwa Ong calls a ‘flexible’ positioning, creating (or at least appearing to create) a “modernity without deracination” (1999, p. 52). This paper examines some of the key characteristics of this positioning, particularly Christianity's establishment of the discourses and practices of national ‘values’ such as the Asian family, interfaith dialogue and concerned social development.

Keywords:

• Christianity
• Singapore
• race/ethnicity
• cultural landscape
• policy

Acknowledgements

Part of the work done for this paper was supported by a research grant (number R-103-000-055-112) from the National University of Singapore. The author is also grateful to the referees for their useful and insightful comments, which have contributed significantly to this revised version.

Notes

1. Of the main socio-economic indicators, the attainment of a university education is probably the least distinctive, with Buddhism in particular being spread out quite evenly among adherents with varying levels of education. However, even here the two biggest percentages go to Christians (33%) and those professing no religion (28%), with Buddhists capturing only 23% of all Singaporeans with a university degree, despite being the religion with the largest number of adherents.

2. The scope and aims of the present paper do not permit a comprehensive account of religion in Singapore; however, this is available from works such as Clammer (1991); Kuo and Tong (1995); Goh (2006); Tong (2007); and from select parts of some of the items in the references section of this particle.

3. This is seen, for example, in the ‘Isaiah incident’ of 1896, in which a complaint against the Methodist Mission's Anglo-Chinese School, in the form of a letter to the press alleging the school's claims about the extent and success of its evangelical work among its students, led to a significant albeit temporary decrease in its enrolments. See Goh (2003), p. 31.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robbie B. H. Goh∗

∗Robbie B. H. Goh is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Singapore