No, 30 percent of Indonesians are not Christian

The video was posted by the Christian Facebook group “Truly Blessed Daily” and contains a three minute video which is from a Christian Broadcasting Network news programme on Christianity in Indonesia.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country.

The narrator says: "Churches here say 30 percent of this Muslim country is now Christians," referring to Indonesia.

The video has been watched more than 4 million times and has more than 127,000 shares and 106,000 reactions, according to Facebook data.

It features banners saying: "THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS AND BUDDHISTS TURN TO JESUS" and "REVIVAL IS HAPPENING IN INDONESIA".

Image

Screenshot of misleading Facebook post

Christians in Indonesia make up less than 10 percent of the country’s population, according to the most recent census data.

The most recent census carried out by Indonesia's statistics agency -- or BPS -- in 2010 shows that 6.96 percent and 2.91 percent of Indonesians were, respectively Protestants and Catholics.

Of Indonesia’s 237 million total population, 87.18 percent was Muslim, the census found.

Indonesia’s religious affairs ministry’s research and development head Abdurrahman Mas’ud told AFP that the 2010 census data was still reliable.

“Even if there is an aggressive dynamics of spread of any religion, it won’t change the BPS figure,” said Mas’ud, referring to the census data.

Beril Huliselan, head of the research division at the Indonesian Church Association, known as PGI, told AFP that there was no data to support the claim that 30 percent of Indonesians were Christian.

“The 30 percent claim does not have valid data,” said Huliselan.

“It’s not easy to obtain the nationwide data on Christians in Indonesia because of the weak database from churches," he told AFP.