Cultural construction of religious tolerance in urban socio-cultural change

Evidence from Salatiga, Indonesia

Authors

  • Sukardi Sukardi UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta
  • Muhammad Wildan UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta
  • Badrun Badrun UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33633/lite.v21i2.15799

Keywords:

interreligious coexistence, Islamic ethics, lived religion, plural society, religious tolerance, socio-cultural change

Abstract

This study examines how religious tolerance is culturally constructed amid ongoing socio-cultural changes in Salatiga, Indonesia. Existing academic studies on pluralism in Indonesia generally emphasize theological discourse and institutional dialogue, resulting in limited empirical attention to the everyday cultural processes that support interreligious harmony. Using a qualitative interpretive design, data from in-depth interviews, participatory observation, and document analysis involving seven interreligious informants were analyzed through interpretive thematic analysis. Findings indicate that tolerance is produced through routine social interactions, shared communal practices, and Islamic ethical values embedded in culture, while globalization, urbanization, and the circulation of digital religion generate new symbolic tensions that require ongoing negotiation. This study demonstrates that religious tolerance operates as an adaptive cultural process that connects ethical religion, lived social practices, and socio-cultural transformation, offering a contextual theoretical model of culturally rooted plural coexistence in late modern urban societies.

Author Biographies

Muhammad Wildan, UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta

Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Scopus ID: 56053545900 Orcid ID: 0000-0003-2111-3891

Badrun Badrun, UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta

Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Scopus ID: 59278271500

References

Abdullah, M. A. (2015). Religion, science, and culture: An integrated, interconnected paradigm of science. Al-Jami’ah: Journal of Islamic Studies, 52(1), 175–203. https://doi.org/ 10.14421/ajis.2015.531.175-203

Abdullah, T. (1987). Islam dan masyarakat: Pantulan sejarah Indonesia. Jakarta: LP3ES.

Abou El Fadl, K. (2005). The great theft: Wrestling Islam from the extremists. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Ammerman, N. T. (2016). Lived religion as an emerging field: An assessment of its contours and frontiers. Nordic Journal of Religión and Society, 29(2), 83–99. https://doi.org/10.18261/ issn.1890-7008-2016-02-01

Ammerman, N. T. (2021). Studying lived religion: Contexts and practices. New York University Press.

An-Na’im, A. A. (2010). Islam and the secular state: Negotiating the future of Sharia. Harvard University Press.

Auda, J. (2008). Maqasid al-Shariah as philosophy of Islamic law: A systems approach. International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Azra, A. (2010). Pendidikan Islam: tradisi dan modernisasi menuju milenium baru. Logos Wacana Ilmu.

Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Stanford University Press.

Beckford, J. A. (2019). Public religions and the postsecular: critical reflections; SSSR presidential address. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 51(1), 1–19. https:// doi.org/10.1163/18748929-01201001

Berger, P. L. (1999). The desecularization of the world: A global overview. Religion and World Affairs,.

Berger, P. L. (2014). The many altars of modernity: Toward a paradigm for religion in a pluralist age. Walter de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516477

Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. Routledge.

Beyer, P., & Beaman, L. G. (2020). Religion in the context of globalization: Essays on concept, form, and political implication. Routledge.

Campbell, H. A. (2013). Digital religion: Understanding religious practice in new media worlds. Routledge.

Campbell, H. A. (2021). Digital religion: Understanding religious practice in digital media. (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003032728

Casanova, J. (2011). Public religions in the modern world. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago press.

Casanova, J. (2020). Global religious and secular dynamics: The modern system of classification. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004427295

Castells, M. (2010). In The Rise of the Network Society. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444319514.oth1

Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. (4th ed.). Sage.

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2018). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. (5th ed.). Sage.

Dupi, M., & Husaen, F. D. U. (2025). Global Research Trends on Religious Tolerance and Interfaith Dialogue: A Bibliometric Review (2000–2025). Jurnal SMART (Studi Masyarakat, Religi,

Dan Tradisi), 11(2), 151–167. https://doi.org/10.18784/smart.v11i2.3324

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Giddens, A. (2001). Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modem Age. Polity Press.

Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1525822X05279903

Hefner, R. W. (2011). Civil Islam: Muslims and democratization in indonesia. Princeton University Press.

Hefner, R. W. (2019). Islam, pluralism, and democracy: Religious norms and political realities (Vol. 72). Princeton University Press.

Hjarvard, S. (2011). The mediatisation of religion: Theorising religion, media and social change. Culture and Religion, 12(02), 119–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2011.579719

Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy. Cambridge University Press.

Kymlicka, W. (2012). Multiculturalism: Success, failure, and the future. Oxford University Press.

Lamont, M., & Molnár, V. (2002). The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28(1), 167–195. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141107

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry (Vol. 75). sage.

Mac Ginty, R. (2021). Everyday Peace: How So-called Ordinary People Can Disrupt Violent Conflict. Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197563397.001.0001

Majid, N. (1999). Islam, kemodernan, dan keindonesiaan. Mizan Pustaka.

McGuire, M. B. (2008). Lived religion: Faith and practice in everyday life. Oxford University Press.

Mietzner, M., & Muhtadi, B. (2018). Explaining the 2016 Islamist mobilisation in Indonesia: Religious intolerance, militant groups and the politics of accommodation. Asian Studies Review, 42(3), 479–497. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2018.1473335

Miles, M., Huberman, M., & Saldana, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook. London: (3rd ed.). Sage.

Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691773384

Orsi, R. A. (2005). Between heaven and earth: The religious worlds people make and the scholars who study them. Princeton University Press.

Parekh, B. (2000). Rethinking multiculturalism: Cultural diversity and political theory. Palgrave Macmillan.

Petrov, G. D., & Croitoru, M. M. (2022). Religious diversity and pluralism. Inter-religious relations in globalization. Technium Soc. Sci. J., 34, 566. https://doi.org/10.47577/tssj.v34i1.7154

Preda, X. (2024). Interfaith law, policy frameworks, and religious diversity: Legal approaches to managing pluralism in multicultural societies. Contemporary Issues in Interfaith Law and Society, 4.

Putnam, R. D. (2007). E pluribus unum: Diversity and community in the twenty‐first century the 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(2), 137–174. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x

Putnam, R. D., & Campbell, D. E. (2010). American grace: How religion divides and unites us. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Qardhawi, Y. (1997). Islam dan toleransi. Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq.

Rahman, F. (1982). Islam & modernity: Transformation of an intellectual tradition (Vol. 15). University of Chicago Press.

Rahmawati, A., & Haryanto, J. T. (2020). Penguatan toleransi dan identitas sosial melalui halalbihalal lintas agama pada masyarakat kampung Gendingan, Yogyakarta. Jurnal SMART (Studi Masyarakat, Religi, dan Tradisi), 6(1), 33–47.

Saldaña, J. (2021). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. (3rd ed.). Sage.

Schatzki, T. R. (2002). The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. Pennsylvania State University Press.

Sztompka, P. (1994). The sociology of social change. Oxford: Blackwell.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (Vol. 2). (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). University of California Press.

Weller, P. (2020). How participation changes things:‘Inter-faith’,‘multi-faith’and a new public imaginary. Faith in the Public Realm, 48(2), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494. 2020.1734035

Wilkins-laflamme, S., & Thiessen, J. (2020). Religious Socialization and Millennial Involvement in Organized and Digital Nonbelief Activities. Sociology of Religion, 81(3), 273–295. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraa010

Woodward, M. (2011). Java, Indonesia and Islam (Vol. 3). Dordrecht: Springer.

Zhakin, R. (2025). Digital religion and moral fragmentation in contemporary Muslim societies. Journal of Religion and Digital Culture, 14(1), 45–62.

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2026-02-27

How to Cite

Sukardi, S., Wildan, M. ., & Badrun, B. (2026). Cultural construction of religious tolerance in urban socio-cultural change: Evidence from Salatiga, Indonesia. LITE: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Dan Budaya, 21(2), 483–494. https://doi.org/10.33633/lite.v21i2.15799

Issue

Section

Articles