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.