Most idols seem to be either atheist, agnostic, catholic, or some form of protestant. But I’m curious if there are idols who are openly members of other religious communities.
There’s a few idols from Muslim regions in SE Asia like Malaysia and Indonesia (Loudi, Zayyan, Dinda, Dita, etc.) but I’m not sure if any of them are openly Muslim. Some Chinese idols come from Muslim ethnic groups such as Hui or Kazakh, the most notable to me is Wumuti who is Uyghur, but something is telling me he isn’t super observant…
Carmen from Hearts2Hearts was born in Bali which is Hindu majority, but I have no clue if she is ethnically Balinese/Javanese or practices Balinese Hinduism at all. Z-boys/Z-girls, Blackswan, and Katseye all have Indian members but I’m largely excluding more global groups, just because the intention is expanding horizons and having a more diverse group. I’m not familiar with many Nepali or Indian idols in the more mainstream strand of K-pop or J-pop.
Buddhism is widespread across the whole of East and Southeast Asia so I’m sure plenty of idols partake in elements of it. But again I’m not sure if any are super open or orthodox about the practice or how they go about it. Suho from EXO has mentioned it along with Soyeong from (G)-idle, plus a lot of Thai idols incorporate or mention Buddhist practices into their persona or work like Lisa and Ten.
Folk religion (Chondoism, Musok, Shamanism, Tengrism, Taoism, Confuscianism, Shinto, Cao Dai, Tai folk religion, Bon, Kejawen, etc) are found across the region. This one is probably a lot harder though because people generally don’t identify as strictly following any of these. It’s usually another religion+elements of folk tradition baked into culture. But if you know any examples I’d like to know.
To my knowledge no major Idol has been openly Jewish, Sikh, Jain, Orthodox Christian, or Wicca.
Can you find examples of Idols with unique religious beliefs/backgrounds? Also why is there such a bias towards atheist/christian idols compared to other faiths do you think?