The Mission of the Rhenish Missionary Society in Sumatra in Colonial Discourse
![Weiße Kirche vor Meerlandschaft Sumatra](/fileadmin/_processed_/a/b/csm_sumatra-4054560_1920_fc62a42f1f.jpg)
Indonesia, the archipelago including more than 17,000 islands, is geographically, linguistically, ethnically and religiously characterized by great heterogeneity. Today, around 207 million people - and thus around 87% of the total population – confess to Islam, leaving Christianity as the largest and most influential religious minority.
In the area of North Sumatra respectively in the Toba-Batak region, where above all the Rhenish Missionary Society (RMG) was active during the colonial period (while Indonesia was under Dutch rule), one finds a reversal of this relation – about 85% of the Batak today confess to (Protestant) Christianity.
Mainly focusing on more well-known mission areas of the RMG in Africa and Papua New Guinea, there is a fundamental research desideratum in the recent research literature regarding the history of the RMG in Sumatra, especially in respect of a comprehensive post-colonial and global-historical analysis from the perspective of academic studies of religion.
This project wants to close this research desideratum by investigating the history of the Rhenish Missionary Society in Sumatra/ Batakland, beginning with the start of the mission in 1861 till the establishment of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan.
Principal researcher:
Lara Lindhorst