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Pluralist Secularism and the Displacements of Christian Proselytizing in Singapore

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Proselytizing and the Limits of Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Asia

Part of the book series: ARI - Springer Asia Series ((ARI,volume 4))

Abstract

Recent scholarship on secularism has focused on the mutual constitution of the secular and the religious. “Secularization” is not the inexorable march of rationality as religion fades into pockets of enchantment, but the historical outcome of modernizing projects defining the secular as public principle vis-à-vis religion as private reason and instituting this division in differentiated public spheres and life-world domains. Much of the leading work on secularization to date has focused on developments within the context of the modernizing West. Consideration of Asian cases will help illuminate the imbrications of secularization with religious and ethnic pluralism in the making of postcolonial and capitalist societies, therefore elaborating the complexities of secularism beyond its civilizational focus on the historical legacies of Christendom. It is to this end that I analyze the contemporary struggle of evangelical Christians with pluralist secularism in Singapore in this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The “Marxist conspiracy” event comprised a series of crackdowns that began in May and June 1987 with the extra-judicial detention of 22 Roman Catholic church and social workers and professionals, among whom were supporters of an opposition political party. The government also subsequently expelled the Christian Conference of Asia, a liberal Christian umbrella group that championed human rights issues across the region. The crackdowns came in the wake of democratization movements supported by Christian churches in South Korea and the Philippines and led to the consolidation of the ruling regime. The event remains to be fully documented. See Barr (2008).

  2. 2.

    Faith Community Baptist Church, “Milestones,” http://www.fcbc.org.sg/fcbc/index.php/en/about-us/milestones.html, Accessed June 27, 2011; Khong (2008).

  3. 3.

    Khong (2000). Khong adopted the “G12 vision” from César Castellanos, a Colombian Pentecostal leader of a quarter-million-strong megachurch in Bogota, whom he met in 2001.

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Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment is due to fellow members of the NUS “Secularization, Religion and the State” Reading Group for the discussion of the many of the ideas crucial to this chapter. Special thanks too to Michael Feener, Juliana Finucane, Chua Beng Huat, and Lai Ah Eng for their critical comments at the Workshop on Proselytization and the Limits of Religious Pluralism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Daniel P. S. Goh

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  1. Daniel P. S. Goh
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Correspondence to Daniel P. S. Goh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Falls Church, Virginia, USA

    Juliana Finucane

  2. Asia Research Institute National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    R. Michael Feener

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Goh, D.P.S. (2014). Pluralist Secularism and the Displacements of Christian Proselytizing in Singapore. In: Finucane, J., Feener, R. (eds) Proselytizing and the Limits of Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Asia. ARI - Springer Asia Series, vol 4. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-18-5_7

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