Proselytising the Indigenous Majority: Chinese Christians and Interethnic Relations in East Malaysia

Abstract

ABSTRACT The growing literature on diasporic Chinese Christians in both America and Europe does not address the position of Chinese Christians when encountering more dominant or even antagonistic religious or ethnic groups. This research considers Chinese Christian evangelism in Sarawak, Malaysia, towards indigenous Iban people. In Malaysia, ethnic Chinese Christians are both a religious and cultural minority, navigating the politics of ethnicity and Islamisation in a diverse, majority Muslim country. Drawing on the ethnography of Chinese Methodists in Sarawak, this article explores the ways in which Christianity is localised and involved in the relations between Chinese, Iban, and Malay people. Chinese Christians compete with the state’s agenda of Islamisation and pursue a sense of calling, morality and citizenship in a context of ethnic and religious diversity. By actively proselytising the indigenous people, rather than passively submitting to the state’s political arrangements, the Chinese Christian diaspora interacts with the indigenous majority and in so doing participates in domestic ethno-politics.