Liberal Islam in Indonesia: Jaringan Islam Liberal on Religious Freedom and Pluralism

Jaringan Islam Liberal (JIL) is a network whose members claim themselves to be proponents of liberal Islam in Indonesia. The term liberal Islam means a critical understanding of Islamic teachings based on the essential meaning of the text by going beyond the literal meaning of the text because the text does not exhaust all meanings of revelation. In order to achieve this, JIL considers the fruits of modernity such as democratization, the idea of progress, secularization, human rights, religious freedom and pluralism and so forth as important in interpretation. Various responses have been addressed to JIL. The responses can be seen as questioning the validity of its concerns, its authority as a proponent of liberal Islam and the relationship between JIL and Indonesian society as its audience. This work also concentrates on all of these response types, either positive or negative, to JIL’s views on religious freedom and pluralism.