Prophetic religiosity

Prophetic religiosity

From Media Indonesia

A year ago (Nov. 25, 2003), in his Idul Fitri sermon at
Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, General Chairman of the central board
of Muhammadiyah, Syafii Ma'arif said, "A religion failing to
defend justice is a withering religion, one that has lost is
vigor."

This message implies that a vigorous faith is the kind that
responds to the demands of justice in the community.

The prophetic echo of this message touches the conscience of
religious people and reverberates even to date, a year later,
when another Ramadhan has come and gone again. The message
remains actual because it strikes to the very core of our
withering religiosity.

Religion is this country is withering because it confines us
-- whether as individuals, groups or institutions -- in our
personal holy space, divorced from the complexity of the reality
of our lives as a nation, involving economic, social, political
and security aspects.

A religious cognitive perception like this will only give rise
to various forms of contradiction. Our religious teachings tell
us that we must pray in the morning, before we go to work, and
also in the afternoon, after we return from work. In between,
there are activities related to our positions and businesses,
involving transactions and forged signatures to siphon off the
state's money.

Every Friday, Muslims go to the mosque and every Sunday,
Christians pray at church. On weekdays, however, people -- be
they traffic policemen on patrol or professors at universities or
even those in top government positions -- systematically siphon
off the state's money, one way or another. In their prayer
houses, people read their holy books but once leaving these
places, they unsheathe their swords and behead their fellow human
beings or mastermind racial/communal rioting.

STEVEN MERE
Tokyo