Institutionalizing Religious Moderation in Non-Military Security Governance: The Cidahu Religious Intolerance Case

2026-06-29T11:08:41+07:00

This study aims to analyze the operationalization of religious moderation in the institutional response to the 2025 case of religious intolerance in Cidahu, Sukabumi, West Java, and to explain its relevance to non-military security governance. This inquiry is important because religious intolerance not only disrupts freedom of religion but may also develop into a broader social security risk when preventive mechanisms fail to function effectively. The study employs a qualitative approach using a document-based single-case study design. Data were collected from policy documents, official government reports, institutional publications, police statements, reports issued by the National Commission on Human Rights, and national and local media sources, and were then analyzed thematically. The findings show that the conflict developed from unresolved local grievances into identity-based escalation; de-escalation occurred through a multi-actor response; and religious moderation became significant when operationalized through dialogue, mediation, coordination, law enforcement, and community engagement. These findings support the strengthening of preventive non-military security governance through cross-actor coordination. The originality of this study lies in formulating an institutional mechanism that explains the transformation of religious moderation from a normative framework into a practice of collaborative conflict governance.

Fully Native Online Religion: Participation-Based Authority and Emergent Governance in an Indonesian Catholic Community

2026-08-04T12:49:32+07:00

This study aims to explain how a religious community that originates entirely in digital space can develop authority, religious practices, and governance without ordained clergy or formal ecclesiastical structures. This inquiry is important for understanding forms of religious life that do not merely transfer pre-existing offline communities onto digital platforms. The study employs a qualitative netnographic approach to the Indonesian Catholic Telegram Community (ICTC), an Indonesian Catholic diaspora community with more than 1,000 members. Data consisting of 118,870 messages from the community’s first six months were collected through digital chat archives and analyzed using abductive thematic analysis informed by constructivist grounded theory coding procedures. The findings show that authority developed through four stages—contribution, recognition, expectation, and crystallization—producing eight informal roles. Religious life developed through digitally adapted devotional practices, community-support practices, and platform-native communal practices. Humor performed five functions: identification, clarification, norm enforcement, boundary-making, and conflict resolution, while nine mechanisms of emergent governance sustained communal order before written rules were codified. These findings have implications for developing more participatory yet transparent governance in digital religious communities. The study’s originality lies in the concepts of fully native online religion, participation-based authority, and endogenous institutionalization as extensions of digital religion studies

Integritas Terbuka: Peace and Interfaith Studies

Institutionalizing Religious Moderation in Non-Military Security Governance: The Cidahu Religious Intolerance Case

Fully Native Online Religion: Participation-Based Authority and Emergent Governance in an Indonesian Catholic Community