Must Christians Accept Money Earned Corruptly or Unethically?
Indonesia ministries and churches navigate accepting donations from means that conflict with biblical ethics.
Indonesia’s Catholic community learned last year that the thousands of dollars it had received as a donation from public official Johnny Gerard Plate were proceeds from a multimillion-dollar telecom bribery case.
Plate, a cabinet minister before he was sentenced to a 15-year prison term, had a history of donating to his religious community in Indonesia’s Christian-majority East Nusa Tenggara province.
The court’s decision stated that a portion of these graft funds had been allocated to church institutions, including the Kupang archdiocese, Widya Mandira Catholic University, and the Timor Evangelical Christian Church, a Protestant group in Kupang. Following Plate’s conviction, Catholic authorities have pledged to return these donations, emphasizing their commitment to ethical financial practices.
This is not the first time Christian officials involved in corruption cases have donated illegal funds to religious organizations. In 2017, former transportation minister Antonius Tonny Budiono was found guilty of accepting bribes. During the trial, he stated to the judges that he used the funds for orphan care and for renovating a damaged church and school. In response to this case, the Indonesian government (KPK) challenged religious institutions, including churches, to conduct financial audits to promote transparency.
In a country where the corruption situation has seemingly only deteriorated in recent years, CT asked Indonesian church and ministry leaders, “Should a Christian organization ever accept a donation gained from an unethical source?” Answers are arranged from firm to more nuanced.
Jimmy Kawilarang, director of Torchbearers Indonesia, West Java
Churches and ministries should reject all ...