Liberalism and Religious Moderation: The Dilemma in Indonesia

Liberalism was born from European society’s condition that was oppressed by feudalism. It is a paradigm that is easily accepted due to its principle of freedom and its emphasis on the human ratio. In its development, liberalism influenced various aspects of the Eastern world, including Islam as the religion of the majority of Indonesians. The two basic problems of this research are: (1) how does liberalism influence Islam and (2) what efforts are required to prevent liberalism’s influence on Islam. This research used the qualitative method with the literary and historical approaches. Results showed that liberalism is currently the mainstream paradigm of thought and culture in the world. The atmosphere of thought as well as the constellation of contemporary humanity are dominated by this paradigm. One of the important efforts to prevent liberalism and extremism is to strengthen the scholarly system of Islam through religious moderation that still strongly holds on to the Qur’an and Hadits, making people knowledgeable and religious. Serious studies on Islamic thoughts should be conducted to be placed from the Islamic worldview perspective. There should be the development of science using the Islamic concept and perspective, rather than using Western methods to assess Islamic concepts.