A newly endorsed education bill in this predominantly Muslim country drew stiff objections from Christian groups, including Seventh-day Adventists, who see key provisions of the bill as encroaching on religious freedom, particularly in operating their own
A newly endorsed education bill in this predominantly Muslim country drew stiff objections from Christian groups, including Seventh-day Adventists, who see key provisions of the bill as encroaching on religious freedom, particularly in operating their own schools.
Two of the provisions drawing the strongest objections mandate that students receive religious instructions from teachers of the same faith in the school where they are currently enrolled, and curriculum mandates that call for consideration of “improvement of faith, demands of the industrial sector, religion, and national unity.”
These provisions, according to Adventist leaders, require schools—sectarian or not—to employ teachers to teach religion to their students. These also require that a school provide facilities to students to enhance the practice of their religious beliefs. This could mean providing mosques to Muslims inside Adventist campuses, leaders indicate.
Seventh-day Adventist schools in Indonesia do not discriminate against non-Adventist students by refusing enrollment: 942 of 2,678 students enrolled in Adventist academies in Indonesia, according to 2001 statistics, are non-Adventist—more than one-third of total enrollment. At the tertiary level the ratios change, but are still significant: 672 of the 4,304 students, or one in six, enrolled in Adventist colleges and universities in Indonesia are not Adventist. A number of them are Muslims or those of other faiths.
If President Megawati Soekarnoputri signs this bill into law, these schools may be forced to reconsider their admission policies of granting enrollment to non-Adventists. Such a stance, church leaders fear, may draw negative reactions from the public and, eventually, from the government.
Reports say that President Soekarnoputri has 30 days to sign the bill, but even if she fails to sign it within that period, it will automatically go into effect.
There are 196,511 Seventh-day Adventists worshipping in 1,672 congregations in Indonesia. The church operates 11 academies, two colleges and one university in the nation.
