Thailand

Something about Thailand:

History: The two paragraphs below are taken from Operation World, written by Jason Mandryk.

Thailand was traditionally a stable country in a troubled region. From time to time, power struggles emerge between political parties. Occasionally, these bring the nation to a halt until the military steps in. Traditionally, the royal family enjoyed highly revered status—a status quickly eroding under the current monarch. Violent activity among Muslims in the south at times brings further upheaval. Widespread corruption in business, politics, the military, and the police allows dishonest people to make themselves rich by oppressing others. Thailand means “Land of the Free”, because it remained free when Western powers colonized the countries around it. Yet the land remains captive to Buddhism, traditional culture, spirit worship, and even occult practices. Pray for spiritual breakthrough so that the Thai might truly be free in the Lord Jesus. Thai Christians remain around 1% of the population, even after 400 years of missionary work. Most of Thailand’s churches are small (30–50 members). More than 6,000 of Thailand’s 7,415 sub-districts have no church! Nearly half of Protestants come from tribal groups (less than 5% of Thailand’s population), not ethnic Thais. A lack of Thai leadership in the churches is one reason for slow church growth. Praise God that national leaders now have a bold goal to reach every one of Thailand’s 80,000 villages and neighborhoods with the gospel! Pray for their plans: a national prayer network, leadership development, extensive research, and community development ministry, all in addition to evangelism. Many church and mission leaders feel Thailand is ready for a breakthrough in church growth.

Politics, socio-economic status, and more about the religion of Thai people (taken from the Harvest Field prayer letter, February 2022).

Religion:

According to Wikipedia:
Buddhism: 93:4% Islam: 5.3% Christianity: 1.1%
Buddhism 88,1% according Johsua Project 2023, July Source Joshua Project:

People Groups: 114
Unreached People Groups : 74

Population: 71 million

Population Annual Growth Rate 0,2 %

Population in Unreached: 61 million (86%)

Primary religion: Bhuddism

Percent Christian adherents: 2%

Percent evangelical 1%

Thailand is a nation encompassing, 198,120 square miles of land located in southeast Asia. The country is located south of China and is bordered by Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, and Malyasia. Thailand is home to almost 70 million people, 96% of whom are Thai nationals. Thai food is one of the world’s most popular forms of cuisine, and the nation is one of the largest exporters of rice on earth. Thai peoples first migrated from southwestern China into what is now Thailand in the 11th century A.D. Thailand means “land of the free,” as she is one of the few Asian nations that was never conquered by Western or European colonists. The land was ruled under an absolute monarchy for many centuries until the economic pressures brought on by the Great Depression led to a bloodless revolution in 1932. Through this revolution, the monarch was pressured into giving the people a constitution. In the years since, Thailand has seen a great deal of political upheaval, experiencing the fourth-highest number of coups of any nation on earth. Consequently, the constitution and/or charters of the nation have been changed some 20 times. The most recent constitution was adopted in 2017. Today, the land is ruled under a constitutional monarchy with a hereditary king serving as the head of state, though with limited powers.

Moral bankruptcy

Thailand is overflowing with moral bankruptcy. More than a million children are subjected to abusive child labor. The illegal drug trade thrives, but even more tragically, so does human trafficking. Prostitution in Thailand is believed to be a $4.3 billion industry each year, and 10% of all tourist money is spent on this trade, comprising 3% of the national budget annually. It is estimated that 2.8 million people are employed as prostitutes, 40,000 of whom are minors. While the government opposes prostitution on paper, it does little, if anything, to restrain it in practice.

Religion

Despite the fact that there is freedom of religion, Theravada Buddhism dominates Thai culture, with an estimated 93.46% of the population identifying as Buddhist. The “Four Holy Truths” of Buddhism are: (1) To exist is to suffer. (2) This suffering comes from being connected to the physical world. (3) One can only escape suffering by eliminating all attachments. (4) The way to eliminate attachments is by following Siddhartha Gautama’s “Nobel Eight-Fold Path.” The Buddhist believes that this suffering takes place in an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation. The goal of Buddhism is to achieve Nirvana, which marks the cessation of the cycle of reincarnation and the end of all suffering. Some would characterize Nirvana as self-extinction. Buddhism does not require its adherents to worship Buddha as a god, nor indeed to believe in the existence of any god. Therefore, one can be both an atheist and a Buddhist. Theravada Buddhism focuses particularly on monkhood, for only monks are believed to be able to achieve enlightenment. Over 300,000 Buddhist monks live in Thailand. The second largest religion in Thailand is Islam, with 5.3 million adherents making up 5.4% of the total population. These live mostly in the south. Only 1.1% of the population are Christians, and only 0.5% of the entire population can be identified as “evangelical.” (Joshua Project’s figures are a bit higher, as seen above. Most local churches are small, with an average of 30–50 members. Half of the Protestant churches are comprised of minority tribal groups rather than Thai people. It is said that over 6,000 of the 7,415 sub-districts in the country have no local church at all. Most of the indigenous pastors have not been equipped with a solid biblical and theological education.

Number of churches:

According to Wikipedia, there are 11 dioceses with 526 parishes and 662 priests in the Catholic Church in Thailand. There are also various Protestant denominations in Thailand: the Church of Christ, which has a large presence; other independent charismatic churches; Baptist churches; Pentecostal churches; and various mission organizations like YWAM, OM, SIM, OMF, the IMB, and others.

State of the church:

According to the leaders we have spoken to thus far, there are not many Reformed churches in Thailand, and a very few Reformed Baptist churches. Many churches are led by women, and there are varying degrees of theological liberalism within some groups. There is a huge need, especially to plant churches in the north- eastern part of the country. Bangkok, the largest city, has many churches and two small Reformed Baptist churches. There is also one Reformed Baptist church in Chiang Mai and one Reformed Baptist church plant going on in the south of the country.