The fields are ripening and the workers are getting ready for harvest. But who is gathering the fruit of the harvest?

At a private lunch in Jakarta recently, an Indonesian pastor was lamenting the conversion of Christians to Islam in Papua. Apparently, Muslim missionary efforts involving migration, building mosques, intermarriage, trade and friendly loans have been bearing fruit in some areas.

In another “Christian island”, West Timor, which experienced a Christian revival in 1965, mosques have been built encircling the cities of Soe and Kupang. Due to the same combination of factors, many nominal Christians have begun to embrace Islam. When asked why, a local pastor explained to me last year that it is because of a lack of discipleship that many nominal Christians have left the faith.

But this is not the only harvest story. Two years ago, TIME magazine published an article about “Christianity’s surge in Indonesia.” The report stated that, “much of the fastest growth comes from Pentecostal and Evangelical conversions.” That growth has continued to this day.

It is now reaching revival proportions if the recent World Prayer Assembly meeting in Jakarta’s sports stadium is anything to go by. One hundred thousand Christians assembled in Jakarta’s sports stadium and the meeting was broadcast to some 3 million people around the nation.

With 240 million inhabitants (the fourth most populous country in the world), Indonesia today has some of the largest churches in the world. At one church in Surabaya, worshippers meet in a massive building with 35,000 seats. In Jakarta, one pastor told me during my last visit that his church is “quite small” by Indonesian standards – a congregation of only 10,000.

Indonesia, Australia’s nearest neighbour, has more Muslims (180 million) than any other nation in the world. But there is more to the religious landscape than meets the eye. What perhaps is not so well known is that, relatively speaking, Islam is a newcomer to Indonesia. Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms ruled the islands for some 1,500 years before Islam became the dominant religion. That explains why the largest Buddhist temple in the world (Borobudur) is located in Java, and why Hinduism has such a strong presence in the resort island of Bali.

The first Muslim sultanate began in the 15th century and, during the 300-year long Dutch colonial rule until independence after World War II, Islam grew substantially in influence, as it was identified with resistance to colonial rule and many pesantrans (religious schools) were established throughout the archipelago.

Some say that Christian traders from India first reached the archipelago as early as the 12th century or even earlier, but it was not until the colonial period that any significant missionary activity was established.

In the 20th century, Indonesia experienced several Christian revivals: Medan in the 1930s; in Jakarta and Surabaya through missions led by Dr John Sung, Andrew Gih, Pak Elias and other evangelists; and then in the 1960s in South Sumatra, West Java, Timor and Sulawesi.

In recent years, aggressive proselytisation has attracted accusations from sections of the Muslim majority that Christians are trying to grow donations for their churches. The visible growth of mega-churches simply adds weight to this argument. As conservative Islam is rising, Christianity is being viewed as an unwelcome foreign influence. It is not surprising, then, that spasms of violence are increasing against churches that have been accused of stealing believers from Muslim communities.

Evidently, the harvest is ripe among both the millions of nominal Muslims and nominal Christians, and both sides are actively seeking new believers, driven by a revived sense of missionary zeal. Perhaps Peter Tsukahira is right when he says that in Indonesia, a great Christian awakening is meeting the Muslim world on an unprecedented scale. And that Muslim world is also on the move.

Now, which way is the divine wind of revival blowing?  Only time will tell.

Dr Beng Yeoh is Vice President, Asia Pacific Leading The Way

Image: Over 100,000 people attended the World Prayer Assembly meeting in Jakarta this year.