Reflection of dry religiosity

Reflection of dry religiosity

Membakar Rumah Tuhan, Pergulatan Agama Privat dan Publik
(Burning Down God's House, A Private and Public Stuggle of
Religion); By Ulil Anshar-Abdallah; PT Remaja Rosdakarya Bandung,
1999; XXI and 257 pages including index; Rp 19,500

JAKARTA (JP): The burning down of places of worship,
especially churches in Situbondo, East Java, between 1996 and
1997, showed the shallowness of theological understanding about
places of worship. That most of people here still have something
against other people's places of worship is true. Cases in
Situbondo and Tasikmalaya, West Java, are the best examples.

Places of worship actually have the same function. Hans Kung,
a liberal Christian theologist, says that they are only a medium
used by worshipers to express themselves.

It is Jehove according to Jews, Jesus according to Christians,
Allah according to Islam and so on.

If places of worship are referred to as a medium to transform
religious values to God, why are there people who destroy other
people's places of worship?

This book tries to get to the core of the problem, if not
offering a solution about the tension between different
religions.

In conclusion, Ulil Abshar-Abdallah points out two elements
that have caused aggression, from religion versus religion to
people versus others of different religions.

Firstly, the burning down of places of worship is a vulgar
form of preaching. Preaching, in its truest sense, is an
invitation to attend a supreme reception with the intention of
delivering a mission just like during the early period of the
Prophet Muhammad in Mecca. With the development of religion, that
has started to show normative limits (of teachings) and an
empiric socio-history (of religious institutions), preaching
began to transform.

There are plenty of logical impacts (even the worst) caused by
preachings that have faced transformation. One that needs to be
mentioned is the death or the disappearance of the congregation's
critical ability because of the one way communication method.

This method benefits preachers who offer the congregation
religious arguments they consider valid. In fact, real intention
is often mixed up with political interests: to provoke or even to
corner other groups. As a result, conflicts among worshipers --
which are often marred by the burning down of places of worship
-- are a by-product of preachings that are filled with political
interests.

Secondly, because of religious politicking religion has been
used as a means of political bargaining to fulfill certain
purposes. "God's house" (place of worship) is not free from such
practices.

Ulil gives an interesting description of the use of places of
worship as a means of political bargaining. Ulil calls such
places "fake God's houses".

"There are thousands of fake mosques and hundreds of fake
churches that have lost their auras, because they are filled with
political interests that have deadened religion," he says (page
xix).

Two main assumptions expressed by Ulil in this book are not
new. Theological problems that have caused misunderstanding
between worshipers up until today have been raised long before
this book was written.

The book is simply a collection of thoughts spread in the mass
media. It focuses on chronological events based on the time of
certain occurrences, just like the Situbondo and Tasikmalaya
cases. In some parts, one will even find repetition of arguments
publicly expressed by intellectuals in the mass media or in their
original works.

However, one will also find sharp analysis from the young
scholar who does not want to be trapped by thinking consumers.

So, the compilation of works is not morally bad, but many
times, has resulted in cynicism from readers. It creates an
impression that Indonesian intellectuals, although not all of
them, are not serious in studying analysis, only part of it.

Essays that are compiled into books are not too important,
considering the content of the analysis. Essays usually are not
too in-depth because the content is either explained globally or
significantly related to limited spaces provided by the media.

In the first part of Burning Down God's House, one cannot find
an in-depth and thorough explanation concerning theological
handicaps within worshipers themselves. It is also the same with
excuses expressed by the religious and bureaucracy elite. No
matter what, essays always deal with both.

But the book, at the very least, is a contribution to
Indonesian intellectualism. Regarding cases of the violation of
religious people's human rights, the book can be used as a
starting point to develop those who have dignity and do not shy
from religious awareness.

The entire book calls every group, such as religious leaders,
bureaucrats and sociologists, to work together actively. Ulil's
efforts to understand theological problems in the book is not a
one sided work, like the method used in preaching, but the work
of many sides. One of them is dialog because in dialog, due to
its two-way communication process, there will be no tyrant of the
minority or majority.

-- Chusnul Murtafiin

The reviewer is a student of religious comparison at the
State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Sunan Kalijaga in
Yogyakarta.