Questioning HKBP leadership

PWT Simanjuntak said at his press conference that "if the dissident reverends and church members defy our call for repentance, we will have no choice other than to expel them," as you put in The Jakarta Post on Oct. 4, 1995.

His statement is very strange because his leadership is not guaranteed by our church's constitution, nor supported by most HKBP members. His leadership is illegal. His leadership is the result of what is called "an unconstitutional Tiara hotel special synod" which was convened by an acting bishop whose mandate was given by the North Sumatra Military Commander, then Maj. Gen. HR Pramono, in a military decree issued on Dec. 23, 1992.

Based on this military decree, the acting bishop, Dr. SM Siahaan (who now claims to be HKBP General Secretary) convened the unconstitutional synod which elected PWT Simanjuntak and SM Siahaan as bishop and general secretary respectively.

Strange because PWT Simanjuntak is not acknowledged by most HKBP members and 514 HKBP church workers (including 234 pastors, 93 assistant pastors, 58 women preachers and 50 deaconess) because he was dismissed from HKBP for poor discipline in 1979. According to the HKBP constitution, he is not allowed to be the leader of HKBP.

Article 10 of the HKBP constitution states: One is regarded as a HKBP member if he/she is baptized, confirmed, agrees with HKBP confession and follows the HKBP constitution.

Since Simanjuntak has violated the HKBP constitution and his leadership is unconstitutional, he is by constitution no longer a HKBP member and already expelled from the church. How can he then threaten to expel the 514 church workers?

He may obtain government support, but as a legal religious organization HKBP is not under the government and its leadership does not need to seek acknowledgment from the government. Simanjuntak's attempts to force HKBP members to acknowledge him will fail because he does not have the moral and spiritual support of HKBP people. Worst still, the national and international Christian communities do not regard him as a legal HKBP bishop.

He had to hold his pastors' meeting in Jakarta because in Sumatra he gets minimal support and feels insecure because he has violated HKBP members' human rights in Sumatra since 1993. In his attempt to get support, his faction has intimidated HKBP members and pastors, destroyed their houses, taken their worship places and churches by force, injured hundreds of people, and killed Herbert Hutasoit and lately Leovold Sitompul in Binjei, Sumatra on June 25, 1995.

REV ROBINSON BUTARBUTAR

Jakarta