Religious Violence and Christian Violent Narratives in the Indonesian Context Where Does The Church Need To Repent?

Religious Violence and Christian Violent Narratives in the Indonesian Context Where Does The Church Need To Repent?
By Paulus S. Widjaja

I met Glen Stassen in 1996 through Ted Koontz my academic advi­sor at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. When I moved to Fuller Theological Seminary in order to pur­sue doctoral studies I had the honor to serve as Stassen’s teaching assistant for a couple of years and to finish my dissertation there under his supervi­sion. Our relationship had developed over the years into more than just a teacher-student relationship. Stassen has been a teacher a friend and even a father to me and my family.

One of Glen Stassen’s legacies for Christians indeed for the whole humanity is his theory of just peace­making practices. In dealing with one of these practices Stassen says that we need to “end judgmental propaganda” and “make amends.”¹ Without the humility to acknowl­edge our wrongdoing and to repent peacemaking is only an ideal not a way of life — let alone a reality of the world. Quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer Stassen strongly opposes the so-called cheap grace to which many Christians often fall prey. Cheap grace is God’s grace that is understood merely as the gross forgiveness of sins. There is no contrite heart needed let alone the desire to be delivered from sin. In Bonhoeffer’s words it is “the justifica­tion of sin without the justification of the sinner.” Grace does everything and the Christian remains passive. In Bonhoeffer’s understanding cheap grace is “the grace we bestow on our­selves.” He continues “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance . . . Cheap grace is grace without discipleship grace without the cross grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.”² It is in line with this call namely the call for repentance and the correction  of our own wrongdoing

Religious Violence in the Indonesian Context

On Tuesday October 9 2012 the Islam Defenders Front (In Indonesia it is known as Front Pembela Islam – FPI) a radical-fundamentalist Moslem group staged a protest in front of the Jakarta City Council. The issue was the current gubernatorial decree that mandates that the vice governor of Jakarta should serve as the leader of several Islamic institutions.³ The gubernatorial decree has now become problematic because Basuki Tjahja Purnama the newly-elected vice governor of Jakarta happens to be a Christian. The problem itself had emerged several months before when Rhoma Irama a well-known Moslem religious singer in Indonesia urged the Moslems in Jakarta to elect a leader who adheres to the same religion as they do namely Islam. This is in his opinion a religious call that is congru­ent with the Koran.

In another setting a pastor in one of the churches in Poso Central Sulawesi was praying in a Sunday ser­vice for the victory of Regina and Sean during the Indonesian Idol singing competition a reality show broadcast by one of the national TV stations in Indonesia. The Christian pastor in Poso took the secular singing compe­tition very seriously because Regina and Sean happened to be Christians. He prayed that God would make these Christian singers victorious in the competition. When Regina and Sean did win first and second place in the competition some Christian tabloids in Indonesia made the victory their front cover story as if it were the victory of Christians over non-Christians.⁴

 Such stories show how religion has been so embedded in the lives of the people in Indonesia that many of them can hardly separate religion from the other dimensions of life. On the one hand this is good because it shows that the Indonesians are very religious. On the other hand it is bad because such intermingling has blinded many Indonesians so much that they are unable to distinguish what belongs to which sphere of life. In the case of the gubernatorial decree that was protested by FPI for instance we can see that the legislators who wrote the decree did not even think about whether there was any relevance at all for the vice governor of Jakarta to serve in the leadership posi­tion of so many Islamic institutions. They did not consider whether it was logical when it discriminates against all the other religions since the access to power is given only to Islamic institutions. However it also does not make sense because religion Islam to be precise has been made one of the criteria in the distribution of public good namely the office. “Every social good or set of goods ” Michael Walzer reminds us “constitutes as it were a distributive sphere within which only certain criteria and arrangements are appropriate.”⁵ Thus the vice gover­nor office should be distributed on the basis of one’s qualifications both one’s past and predicted future perfor­mance as demanded by the particular purpose of the office.⁶ Religion what­ever it might be

The FPI itself was silent when they saw the gubernatorial decree to be beneficial to Moslems for it gave them special and direct access to power. But they are very upset when a Christian occupies the vice governor position which is problematic for the Moslems’ interests. So it is really confusing as to whether religion is a matter of approaching God or of gaining economic and political power. Religion seems to become simply a practical matter.

On the other side in the case of the Indonesian Idol competition we can also see the irrational sentiment of the Christian pastor in Poso by connect­ing a secular singing competition with religious victory. Religion should have nothing to do with a secular singing competition whatsoever. If Regina and Sean won the first and second places in the competition it was not because they are Christians who are blessed with victory by God the Almighty but simply because they have beautiful voices compared to the other contes­tants.

Such a problem is very dangerous in a multi-faith context like that of Indonesian society because religion is not simply used as an instrument to get economic or political interests but it has been knitted and constructed in the societal web of meanings. In such situations religion is connected to every matter of one’s life. An ordinary traffic incident between motorcyclists on a street may trigger big social unrest when the two motorcyclists happen to have different religions. People do not see others as fellow human beings but as people who have different religions. Religious difference takes precedence over commonality as human beings. Such a social con­struct of religion in turn gives way to religious leaders who manipulate religion in order to legitimize their own economic and political interests. Thus what has been stated in the pre­amble of UNESCO Constitution is very true “Wars begin in the minds of men it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be con-structed.”⁷

Hasenclever and Rittberger are cor­rect in pointing out that religious violence never just happens. For reli­gious violence to happen some prior

 conditions must exist namely mass mobilization and social support. The mass mobilization can take place when the relations between religious groups are tainted with mistrust against each other when there is willingness among the religious rank and file to sacrifice themselves for the cause at stake and when the conflict is about values.⁸ These conditions do exist in many settings in Indonesia. Related to that a conflict about values especially religious values or economic-political interests wrapped up in religious val­ues is always more dangerous than a conflict about interests. A conflict about values goes to the very heart of a political community.

Such a conflict is prone to violence due to at least three reasons: (1) Individuals usually identify with the values of their community. Therefore when those values are at stake they will see it as an existential threat to the community. This explains why the spread of “Western” culture and religion does pose a threat to many Moslem groups in Indonesia. (2) In conflicts about values the use of violence is seen as morally justified because it is an act to defend what the respected community regards as right or wrong just or unjust and what makes up the identity of the commu­nity and its members. (3) The use of violence is also reinforced in a conflict about values because compromise is seen as impossible and the defeat will become a total reversal of one’s beliefs. It is a zero-sum game.⁹

It is against such a backdrop that we need to consider the power of narra­tives especially religious narratives in shaping our morality. Indeed nar­ratives shape our character and this determines the kind of attitudes and behavior that we have toward others especially people who are different from us in a multi-faith context.

The Role of Narratives in Character Formation

To begin with we need to be aware that our actions are intelligible only within a narrative context because human knowledge is necessarily narrative-shaped. There are no actions

 words virtues and even character that can be understood apart from a certain narrative context.¹⁰ We may give some money to a beggar whom we meet at a street junction but that would not be a meaningful action unless we come to know personally who the beggar is where she or he lives what kind of family she or he has what kind of struggles she or he has to undergo etc. In short we need to know the person’s life
narratives. Nor is it a meaningful action when we give the money sim­ply because we happen to have some coins in our car. Such an action can only become meaningful when we do the action for a particular reason that we derive from the narratives within which we live. Those narratives become the watershed for our action and make the action meaningful.

With that understanding in mind we can see that the religious narra­tives within which people live are very crucial because they create the plausibility structure by and through which the reality of the world is com­prehended and within which divine legitimization is given by juxtaposing the mundane and the sacred.¹¹ In a multi-faith context such narratives have provided maximal and thick morality for the respected religious community. Everyday morality is never self-explained. We cannot rely on minimal and thin morality to shape and determine a livable moral­ity. As Walzer points out the subject of morality is always “the meaning of the particular moral life shared by the protagonists.” The minimal codes only provide “a framework for any possible (moral) life ” that we need to further fill in with specific details. We “can­not simply deduce a moral culture . . . from the minimal code.”¹² The account of narratives is therefore very crucial to our moral life.

One’s life narratives however are always correlative to the narratives of the community of which one is a part. Before we can answer the ques­tion “What am I to do?” we have to first answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”¹³ As Robert Bellah and others remind us “Finding oneself [neces­sarily] means . . . finding the story or narrative in terms of which one’s life makes sense.”¹⁴ In this matter the “cultural tradition of a people — its symbols ideals and ways of feeling ” provides “the meaning of the destiny” that all members of the respected community share and makes one’s life meaningful.¹⁵ “Narrative history ” in short is what Alasdair MacIntyre calls “the basic and essential genre for the characterization of human actions.”¹⁶

The FPI protested the gubernatorial decree that renders the vice gover­nor of Jakarta an important posi­tion in Islamic institutions because this group lives in an antagonistic relationship with the Christians. So the problem is not primarily about a Christian occupying an important position in Islamic institutions but about the conflict history between the two groups of people. That is the real narrative that lies behind the protest. The same is true about the interces­sion of the Christian pastor in Poso on behalf of Regina and Sean during the Indonesian Idol competition; this was not an action that was born in a vacuum. The bloody conflict between Christians and Moslems a decade ago in Poso has provided a narrative context for the pastor to perceive the secular singing competition as com­petition between religions. Thus the individual members of FPI cannot be extracted from the narratives of the antagonistic relationship between Christians and Moslems. Likewise the Christian pastor in Poso cannot be separated from the narratives of reli­gious conflict between Christians and Moslems there.

In that sense we can say that there is certain givenness in our lives — a givenness that we inherit from the community we are born into — yet it significantly determines who we are and who we will be.¹⁷ As Gilbert Meilander says “We are what we have received.”¹⁸ Our character to a great extent is given even before we can shape it ¹⁹ because the character of our community inevitably shapes our individual characters. It is by

 adopting the historical drama of our community and by participating in the continuation of that drama that we become who we are. Each of us adopts the convictions of our com­munity and makes the community’s way of seeing become our own. We then let those convictions and ways of seeing determine our quest and by so doing we become who we are.²⁰ “All of us ” Stanley Hauerwas once said “are more fundamentally formed by stories we did not create than those we have chosen.”²¹ Therefore we have to be critical of the narratives of religious communities especially those narra­tives that nourish violent behavior. We also need to intentionally create and nurture certain kinds of narratives and allow them to shape our character and the character of the generations to come.

With that said I am fully aware that I cannot speak on behalf of Indonesian Moslems in relation to the kinds of narratives that may drive some Moslem groups into violent actions. I will focus the remainder of my analysis only on Indonesian Christians even though the same logic may also be applied to both groups. Christian Violent Narratives

To begin with we Christians in Indonesia need to be critical of violent narratives such as cosmic war narra­tives that are very well alive within Christianity especially among the urban churches.²² These narratives tell about an ongoing war in the world between two conflicting forces the good and the evil ones. They also include the narratives of heaven and hell as well as of the end of time because the cosmic war can only make sense when people believe in the exis­tence of heaven and hell that become the final destination of all people on earth. There are three crucial points that we have to be aware of related to these cosmic war narratives: (1) Religious people tend to believe that war is cosmic in nature and it deter­mines the identity of all human beings in the world. Faced with that kind of war one has to choose whether she or he belongs to the good force or

 the evil one. Thus war determines one’s dignity and is therefore directly related to one’s basic need. For this reason one is willing to die in order to win the war because winning is the ultimate sign that one is on the “right side.” (2) In the cosmic war it is believed that what is at stake is one’s own eternal life either in heaven or in hell. Hence religious people are will­ing to do anything to win the war. (3) The cosmic war is also believed to end only at the end of time. As long as the world is still moving everybody has to choose a side and engage in that war.²³

When religious people are influ­enced by cosmic war narratives they tend to perceive themselves as belong­ing to the good force under God’s command. It is therefore just a matter of time before they point their fingers at people of other faiths as belonging to the evil force that they have to fight against and even abolish. Violence naturally follows. And the more reli­gious people see that the war will not be over soon the stronger the drive within them will be to believe that they are indeed living in a cosmic war situation that has to be won.

The case of Münster Anabaptists in Europe is a perfect example of these dynamics. On February 9 1534 a group of radical Anabaptists in the city of Münster took over the city coun-cil.²⁴ The group that was born out of a pacifist movement soon turned into a radical group that justified the use of violence because they believed that the apocalyptic reign of God on earth had arrived and that they were the chosen ones who would run the world togeth­er with God. On the basis of such beliefs they felt the right to take ven­geance on behalf of God against his enemies. Violent actions naturally fol­lowed. They expelled those at Münster who refused to be re-baptized. They used lethal weapons to attack other people because they understood them­selves as the “children of Jacob” who were only helping God to punish and abolish the “children of Esau” in order to manifest the kingdom of God on earth. They even justified suicide kill­ing. It is true that such madness may not happen again among Christians in modern times. Nevertheless it shows the danger of violent cosmic war nar­ratives in shaping the character of reli­gious people whatever their religion is.

We must be critical of cosmic war narratives for several reasons. In the first place we need to realize that those narratives are only a metaphor used in the Scripture to make sense of the reality within which we live. It is a metaphor that biblical writers used to make sense of the seemingly end­less battle between the good and the bad between God and the devil. Yet we should not forget that metaphor is a language strategy that we use to understand a more difficult and abstract reality by comparing it to a more popular tangible one. We use B in order to understand A precisely because we understand B better than A and because we cannot understand A otherwise. Due to such a character­istic a metaphor is by its very nature always correct and incorrect. It is cor­rect because we can see some resem­blances of the more abstract reality in the more popular tangible reality. But it is also incorrect because the two realities are not completely and perfectly the same. However a prob­lem soon emerges when a metaphor is used too often. The metaphor will turn into a model and lose its flex­ibility or ambiguity. We congruently will understand the model as the only way to understand the abstract reality that we could not understand other­wise. That is also what happens when Christians use the cosmic war meta­phor too often in sermons and other means alike.

We also need to question cosmic war narratives for another reason. If the anger of God were to be under­stood as a redemptive one it is only fair to ask why God has to redeem the world by abolishing our enemies. Is there not any other way that is more peaceful? We can even pose the same question in regard to the concept of hell itself. Is it not cruel for God to punish people in an eternal fire with­out letting them ever die even if they

 were the evil ones? By the same token we may ask why the narratives of the end of time which are so violent can be asymmetrical with that of the creation story. If God as portrayed in Genesis for instance is able to create the world without violence that is only by words — and that is the genius of the biblical account of creation as compared to other similar accounts in the ancient Near Eastern world²⁵– why can God not end the universe the same way? There is a serious problem of theodicy here. If God were able to end the universe by words and thus nonviolently but does not want to do so God is absolutely not a good God. On the other hand if God was willing to end the universe by words but is simply not able to do so God is not omnipotent.

Among the churches in Indonesia the problem with violent Christian narratives is related not only to the cosmic war narratives that many preachers preach but also with prayers and songs which are more intimate personal and passionate in comparison to sermons. Prayers and songs have to do more with the heart than the head. Nevertheless we need to remember that there is reciprocity between being and doing.²⁶ As one’s doing is influenced by one’s being so is one’s being by one’s doing. It is in this regard that we must take precaution to the spirit of vengeance and hatred which is expressed in our intimate personal and passionate narratives such as prayers and songs. When the Psalmist for instance prays so that God “Break[s] the arm of the wicked and evildoers” (Psalm 10:15) or that “The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked” (Psalms 58:10) such prayers are obviously bound with the spirit of vengeance and hatred. God is here portrayed as the One who will destroy the enemies their off-spring and all their properties (Psalms 9:5-6; 21:10; 34:16). While we may well understand the reasons behind such prayers they are nonetheless questionable. It is true that God is willing to hear whatever  plea people want to express and is able to handle such a plea as a sovereign omnipotent God. The problem

Prayers of vengeance may actually nourish our hatred and in turn shape our character as a person of vengeance and hatred. Just as jogging will train one to be a runner so does a prayer of vengeance train us to be a venge­ful person. This is very crucial. Our hatred against the oppressors not love of neighbors may in fact become the leitmotif of our struggles for justice. And such hatred might well be nur­tured by our prayers. We need to be cautious with this dynamic because when we do not have the power in our hands we may keep such wish­ful thoughts of vengeance only in our hearts and express it in our prayers. That is what seems to happen in Psalms. But once we have the power in our hands we may really act upon our vengeful thoughts and fulfill our wishful thinking. Once again the crucial question is not whether God is willing to accept and able to handle such prayers and our wishful think­ing but rather whether we can handle it. Non-hatred is in many ways much more important than nonvio­lence. This is true for both religious and secular movements that strive for justice.

The same is true for religious songs. They are even more powerful than sermons in shaping our character because many people like to sing songs wherever they are and what­ever they are doing–whether they are sweeping the floor cooking in the kitchen driving a car etc. These repeated actions will certainly and inevitably shape our character so it is very dangerous indeed when Christian songs nourish the spirit of conquest and violence. Some examples can be given here. A famous song among the Indonesian churches says:

 I was given the power of the Majestic King
To conquer the enemies under my feet
I employ the power of the Majestic King
When God is on my side who will be my opponents?
. . . You [God] give me the victory I cheer up celebrating it
Another famous song says:
The Lord is in power
Fire is burning before Him to burn all His enemies
His people shout in joy
Still another song says:
Because God is omnipotent and highly praised
He is mightier above all gods
His power is almighty to crush the enemies

Such songs can be very dangerous not only because they generate violence but also because many Christians in Indonesia have already been daunted by “the danger of Islam ” as my col­league Emmanuel Gerrit Singgih correctly points out. During Suharto’s era Singgih notes the Indonesian churches preferred to be perceived as “friend of Suharto ” not because Suharto was a good president but because the Indonesian churches were afraid of the possibility of the estab­lishment of an Islamic country and Suharto was seen as carving such pos­sibility by nationalizing Pancasila.²⁷ So the religious violent narratives as expressed in the songs that many Christians sing intermingle with the narratives of hate and fear that already have been well alive among the churches. That is why we need to be cautious of the narratives that we let shape and determine our character whatever form those narratives take whether sermons prayers or songs.

The Church as Hermeneutic Community

We have seen that our character is correlative to the narratives found in the corporate life that we inherit and develop. But within a multi-faith context such as that of the Indonesian society there are too many histories we inherit and too many communities

 we participate in. Each Indonesian person has to live amidst the multi­plicity of narratives which cannot simply be denied nor forced into an artificial harmony.

In such situations we can escape from violent and destructive narratives only when we develop integrity by being connected to a narrative that is sufficient to lead us through the many values and virtues that form and shape our character. This can only mean letting a truthful story that provides “the skills appropriate to the conflict­ing loyalties and roles we necessarily confront in our existence ” shape and determine our character. The forma­tion of our character in other words is correlative to our being initiated into a decisive narrative that displays the virtues by which we live which is found in a community that claims our life in a more essential fundamen­tal way than any other community can claim.²⁸ The difference between Islamic ethics and Christian ethics to be sure is not that each prescribes different precepts but that each is based upon different narratives.²⁹ As Stanley Hauerwas says “One could change the story and thereby change the rule.”³⁰

In this light the church plays an important role as a hermeneutic com­munity because Christian ethics is in essence an elaboration and specifica­tion of “the meaning relation and truthfulness of Christian convictions.” The claims that we make about the way things are always “involve convic­tions about the way we should be if we are to be able to see truthfully the way things are.”³¹ Hence the church is in a position to help us by recogniz­ing the world as it is and interpret­ing it in the light of God’s narratives found in Scripture because “the way to interpret a narrative is through another narrative.”³² It is here that the church helps us discover the “central metaphors”³³ by and through which we see reality and upon which moral precepts religious and non-religious alike are arranged explicated ana­lyzed and interpreted.

Such central metaphors or meta-narratives are important because they show us the true nature of God human existence and the world. Their intrinsic values necessarily connect us to the divine and show how we must shape morality for the human life project because those values indicate what really counts for human life.³⁴ Biblical injunctions in their truest sense are not simply information about Christian virtues. In a funda­mental way they tell us about what really counts for love truth peace justice etc.³⁵ In the heart of this metanarrative is God’s salvation his­tory which culminated in the birth life ministry death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is indeed a divine narrative since it provides us with Christian basic convictions that are decisive normative and ultimate and it helps us see reality “under the mode of the divine.”³⁶

The church is the hermeneutic community within which we are nourished and provided with inter­pretations of human experiences and of the transcendent. It is the religious symbols and theological concepts we find within the church that help us see things differently and truthfully and which help us interpret what is going on in our surroundings.³⁷ The narratives of Jesus Christ are thus important for the task of interpreting all the other narratives that promote and justify violence including the narratives that we find within the church itself whether in sermons prayers or songs as previously men­tioned. We need to acknowledge our part in creating and nourishing the enmity and hatred between people especially between Christians and Moslems and then to repent from such wrongdoing. At the same time we also need to promote those kinds of narratives that will nourish love and shape us to be peacemakers just as Jesus Christ our Lord has said “Blessed are the peacemakers! For they shall be called the [children] of God” (Matthew 5:9).  

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