And the congregation didn't open up a can of
on those savages?
The congregation, are they sheep?
Next Sunday: bring baseball bats, machettes, guns.
The muslims show up, they had better be there to pray.
Posted on 06/04/2007 5:25:41 AM PDT by siunevada
JAKARTA (AFP) - Muslim hardliners stormed a church in Indonesia during services, smashing images of Jesus Christ and demanding that it be closed down, the pastor said on Monday.
Dozens of churches have had to be closed in the Muslim-majority country in recent years, and Sunday's attack was the second on the small Protestant church in the West Java town of Soreang since 2005.
Reverend Robby Elisa, who heads the church, said around 100 hardliners attacked while Sunday school was in session. He said his wife was beaten and that at least four stained glass depictions of Jesus were smashed.
"They came and forced their way into the church," he said. "The attackers claimed to be from the Anti-Apostate Movement Alliance. The same group had already attacked the church in 2005."
The secretary of the church's headquarters in Jakarta, Reverend Budi Setiawan, said that the attack had been reported to the Indonesian Church Association (PGI).
West Java, where Islam is strong, has seen a series of attacks on churches to force their closure.
The Jakarta Post newspaper said that more than 30 churches have had to close their door in West Java since 2004 because of attacks by Muslim hardliners. Dozens of churches have also been forced to close in other provinces, it said.
According to a current decree by the religious affairs ministry, houses of worship must obtain the approval of at least 60 percent of local residents and have at least 90 followers to be able to operated.
Elisa said that his church was small and only had a congregation of some 20 adults and 40 children and teenagers.
"Where else can we go? We are too far from the city and our congregation needs a place to worship," Elisa said.
The district police chief could not be immediately reached for comment, and the officer on duty at the district police declined to comment.
Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-majority nation with over 90 percent of its 220 million people adherents of Islam.
Although the constitution gives all religions equal footing, laws make it difficult for religions other than Islam to establish houses of worship.
Christians with images of God (primarily Roman Catholics and Orthodox) shouldn't have those images. It doesn't make them un-Christian.
However, judging from telenovelas (there probably aren't many of those in the UK, but still....) many Roman Catholics do seem to behave toward those images exactly as though they are idols.
So, they should be on guard that they don't stop worshiping God, and not the image. Add onto this, that the image is bound to be inaccurate--were there portraits/sculptures made of Jesus?
It is similar to Creationism--touchy subject here--Christians should be Creationists, but not being one doesn't by itself make a non-Christian. Similarly, Christians shouldn't have crucifixes, but that in and of itself doesn't make them non-Christian (nor does having a crucifix make a Christian).
You can pray to God without having an image of God.
For the italicized parts, only "should" and "shouldn't" should be italicized.
Similarly, you can pray to God and have an image of God.
I understand that one should be wary of the peril of worshipping the idol instead of God, but as long as one avoids this pitfall, what is the harm?
Back onto the topic of the thread:
You seem to be implying that it is excusable for the Muslims to destroy Christian places of worship.
But the danger is that the image could become an idol--why have that threat there at all.
While you could argue that having an image is acceptable, the Bible definitely doesn't state that you must have an image of God. So why put yourself at risk when having the image is unnecessary?
It isn't stating that the Christians deserved this or that the Muslims were in the right at all.
Hope that clears things up.
I will be sure to tune in to the evening news to see more on this sotry [rolleyes]
“Hope that clears things up.”
It derailed the discussion certainly.
The question is what should be our reaction. Staking claims on doctrinal points helps no Christians in the area.
I’d think we would all begin to realize that Islam rejects everything Christian.
Again, so what do we do about it? Pressure the government? Pressure our government? Try to support the Christians in the area by prayer and fasting? Send money?
Prayer and fasting is an absolute. We can do nothing.
What else?
As for the other part, look at comment 6 for personal views.
Christians here can pressure the American government to pressure the Indonesians (and other Muslim countries) to permit freedom of religion and enforce it (Indonesia does have freedom of religion, it just isn't always enforced). The Christians there shouldn't go out and raze a mosque.
How's that?
Plus, American Christians can send donations to their Indonesian brethren to help them rebuild.
Buy nothing Indonesian nor travel there for the years to come.
Support the missionary movements in the region and speak to your elected official about THE NEED TO SUPPORT FREEDOM OF RELIGION IN NATIONS SEEN AS ALLIES BY WASHINGTON!
Barack Hussein Obama is an expert on the place
And it can be pointed out that this type of ‘derailment’ takes two (at least) to tango.
Well, tell you what...
I’ll keep the idol worship to an absolute bare minimum, you can do your thing, and let’s concentrate on that fella over there with a bomb who wants to kill us both.
So because they do something evil, that means we should also? If we followed your plan, how would that make us different from the salafists?
http://www.libforall.org/about-us-patron.html
His Excellency Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid
Serves as LibForAll Foundation’s
Patron and Senior Advisor
Popularly known as Gus Dur, H.E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid was Indonesia’s first democratically-elected president and long-time head of the Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization, with nearly 40 million members. He was also the recipient of the 2003 Friends of the United Nations Global Tolerance Award.
For over thirty years, Gus Dur has used his position to advocate religious tolerance, pluralism and democracy. On many occasions, he has sent members of his Muslim organization to defend Christian churches and congregations—with their lives, if necessary—from attack by radical Islamists.
These photographs show a crowd of over 10,000 Indonesian Christians praying for this powerful Muslim leader, who has dedicated his life to defending the right of everyone to worship God in his or her own way.
Click here to watch a video clip of this event. (Flash video for broadband, 4.7 Mb.)
In addressing Muslim audiences, Gus Dur invariably reminds his listeners of their sacred duty to respect others’ beliefs, and to avoid any form of discrimination or intolerance towards those who worship differently
from themselves.
LibForAll founder, Chairman & CEO Holland Taylor and co-founder/board member Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid roaring with laughter, as they share a light moment in Wahid’s office. Together, they help define LibForAll’s strategy.
Click here to read an interview with Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid.
Defeating Islamist Extremism
http://www.libforall.org/news-BG.html#But_there_is_no_doubting_Wahids_commitment_to_interfaith_harmony._He_tells_Indonesian_Muslims_that_
By Jeff Jacoby | January 22, 2006
‘’I HAVE been called ‘Chrislam’ because I am so close to Christians,” Abdurrahman Wahid is saying. ‘’When I was criticized by a certain Muslim preacher for not being harsh enough against the ‘kaffir’ [infidels] — for being too close to Jews and Christians — I told him to read the Koran again. Because when the Koran speaks of ‘infidels,’ it means idolaters,” not monotheists.
Wahid, the former president of Indonesia, is speaking to me by phone from his office in Jakarta. With him is C. Holland Taylor, an American entrepreneur who fell in love with Indonesian culture en route to making a fortune in the telecom industry. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Taylor created the LibForAll Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting Islamist extremism by promoting a culture of liberty and tolerance in the Muslim world; Wahid is the foundation’s patron and senior adviser.
With 200 million residents, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation, and Wahid — popularly known as Gus Dur — was not only its first democratically elected president but the longtime chairman of its largest Muslim organization, the 35 million-member Nahdlatul Ulama. A revered religious scholar who studied in Cairo and Baghdad, Wahid is a longtime champion of a moderate, progressive, and nonpolitical Islam. As a result, he has frequently clashed with militant fundamentalists whose growing influence, fueled by Arab/Wahhabi oil money, is undermining Indonesia’s traditional religious pluralism.
Last year, Wahid spearheaded the opposition to a series of 11 reactionary fatwas, or religious decrees, issued by a high-ranking council of Indonesian Muslim clerics. The fatwas condemned any Islamic teaching based on liberalism and secularism, banned interfaith prayers not led by a Muslim, and even prohibited the answering of ‘’amen” to a non-Muslim prayer. Wahid and LibForAll promptly organized a group of religious leaders into an ‘’Alliance Toward a Civil Society,” which denounced the fatwas as unworthy of decent Muslims and improper under Indonesia’s constitution.
‘’Gus Dur went on TV and radio to insist that the fatwas had no legitimacy and called on Muslims to ignore them,” Taylor says. ‘’Because of his genuine scholarship, his criticism carried great weight. This is a model of how to defeat radical Islam worldwide.”
Wahid and Taylor are convinced that the impact of Islamist fanaticism can best be blunted by promoting leading Muslims who endorse moderation, pluralism, and democracy. One member of the LibForAll board is rock star Ahmad Dhani of the band Dewa. Some of Dhani’s hits have been aimed at undercutting Islamic militants. For example, one album is called ‘’Laskar Cinta” (’’Warriors of Love”) — a play on the name of a terrorist group, Laskar Jihad (’’Warriors of Jihad”). By harnessing his music and popular following to the cause of peace and interfaith tolerance, Dhani aims to inoculate young Indonesian Muslims against the extremism and violence of the Islamists.
While all of LibForAll’s work to date has been in Indonesia, Wahid and Taylor hope to begin operating in other Muslim nations soon. On the drawing board now: a project to translate ‘’Laskar Cinta” into Arabic and then arrange for an Egyptian pop star to perform and record it at a concert in Cairo. Wahid intends to meet with Egyptian clerics and opinion leaders, to press his view that Islam requires openness toward other religions and that Islamist terrorists and their supporters must be resisted and discredited.
Taylor argues that because of Indonesia’s long tradition of pluralism, and because of Wahid’s great following, Indonesia is the ideal base from which to launch an intellectual and cultural assault against the jihadists’ ideology. The ‘’essence” of Islam, he and Wahid maintain, is summed up in the words of the Koran (Sura 109:6): ‘’For you, your religion; for me, my religion.” But whether such a message will resonate in the Arab world remains to be seen. After all, jihadists quote the Koran too, and the verses they cite are as intolerant and supremacist as Wahid’s is pacific and humane.
But there is no doubting Wahid’s commitment to interfaith harmony. He tells Indonesian Muslims that they can learn from Christianity and Christian life, and has dispatched armed members of Nahdlatul Ulama to protect Christian churches from Islamist violence. Not long ago, one of Wahid’s Muslim adherents was killed when he discovered a bomb in a church and used his body to shield the Christian worshipers from its blast. That stunning act of selflessness is a powerful reminder that Muslims no less than non-Muslims have a great deal riding on the defeat of the Islamofascists, and that we will not win the war against radical Islam without Muslim allies like Wahid.
Jeff Jacoby’s e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.
And the congregation didn't open up a can of
on those savages?
The congregation, are they sheep?
Next Sunday: bring baseball bats, machettes, guns.
The muslims show up, they had better be there to pray.
Pigeon pucks, JMP. Christ wasn't averse to violence, in defense of what's right. Matter of fact, He had quite a temper.
There is no mention of 'images of God' at the end of line three.
What exactly is your agenda on this thread, mate?
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
- William B. Yeats
******
This poem creeped me out back in college. It *really* creeps me out now. The images of a civilization in decline, about to be replaced by something savage, are not more vivid because of my more "seasoned" perspective. This stuff is really happening.
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